I’m Gonna Be IN PictAARs: An Algiers AAR

PrawnStar:

PrawnStar said:

War Exhaustion slows down recruitment speed quite significantly, the Danes will struggle to put a army together quickly.

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I didn’t know that. No doubt I’ll keep that in mind for future games. As for the catch, I couldn’t remember the difference between a vanilla game and a magna mundi game so I wasn’t sure how badly the HRE would react to me taking a bunch of provinces.

aldriq: I needed a way to westernize and trying to get something in Italy wasn’t working. Naples is too strong and like throughout most of Germany, everyone’s guaranteeing everyone else.

To all: I should have an update out within the next hour or so. My Desmond game is getting rough and I need a break.

I've also started a blog which will describe my upcoming projects. For more information, at the start of every month check out my inkwell. It'll provide more accurate release dates, any cancellations and more detailed descriptions. I will only update the blog when I have a new AAR planned but I don't expect to do another blog update until the weather around here begins to cool after the summer.

Chapter 20: HAARnessINg the Powers of the Cat Organ​

Another late night is here which is like saying “a no-talent rapper.” Its redundant.

Back to the war a steady string of forts fell: Lumberg (Feb 5), Westphalen (March 23), Hamburg (June 11) and the Golden Horde and Denmark made peace (March 27.) By the end I no longer wanted to continue the war and settled for Osnabruck. In truth I remembered bad penalties when holding an HRE province and I couldn’t remember the difference between MM and vanilla. o By December 1 I received the Western Arms Trade which is a nice start.



Oh and I also made Osnabruck leave the HRE. Strange how it is that the buildings that were once Catholic have a very Arabic feel. Anyway, Lets! Get! Westernized!



Over the next few years I became the willing spectator watching Castile and France go to war and four months later noting France giving up two provinces. They must be in a sorry shape. And later the Golden Horde annexing Muscovy just after one of my master of mint guys died. +3 stab was reached in 1475 and I arranged a royal marriage with the Mamluks hoping for a possible, unlikely inheritance.

The world was pretty boring for a while so I won’t list everything that happened. Let’s get to the good stuff, like war.



No explanation necessary



I turned them into vassals, sinking their prospects faster than the Dixie Chick’s career after they refused to “shut up and sing.” At least obscurity isn’t that lonely of a place but it is a crummy place to live, reminding me of Hollywood and Vine after midnight. Or even during mid-day.

A month later I was able to convince some of the bolder(dumber) residents of Algiers to begin colonizing Tuat. Maybe I’ll go for controlling all of Africa, that could be nice even if some bits of it are poor. I must confess that I like the ‘mystery prize’ province because you never know what you’re going to get. More often than not its more of a disappointment than my failed attempts to tuna fish. Which is odd because I can tune nearly anything.



I kept quiet (that’s how you know I’m a guy) again, bringing Montenegro into my alliance, hiring a 2 star inflation after Mamluks diplo-annexed Tripoli and I moved a slider +1 centralization.



Then, in 1479 I did something that made me remove my lowest master of mint, instead stuffing a stability guy in my court...

Now I’m off but I’m going to stay signed in to the Paradox forums just to mess with your minds.

Improfane: Thanks, and you’re right, I’m not able to Westernize yet.

demokratickid: I just had to test it out to see what it did.

aldriq: Osnabrück? I think you’re confused about this AAR. This is a low brow production, therefore, no umlauts. No capital movements... but I must add that all these guarantees are annoying. Its hard to find anyone that’s available for attack. I’d hate to play a smaller Muslim nation (or an Irish one) with a poorer shot at expansion. It’d be great if the player and the computer were only allowed so many guarantees. At least outside of the HRE.

As for Desmond, in my 1.3 Algiers game I did take an Irish province to westernize. But it was easy because I didn’t have to worry about missions or insane guarantees.

EDIT

EDIT: Deleted edit

The Paradox forums seem to be down more and more. Though it might just be me. My casual route is through europauniversalisiii.com and I go from there. But sometimes it doesn’t work. When that doesn’t work I try my “backdoor” which is to google victoria forums. That works... sometimes.

And while I was trying to work this out I got to thinking, “Now I know why Jim Morrison chose to sing ‘Backdoor Man.’” He obviously has problems getting into these forums too! It makes perfect sense. Now, who wants to go to his grave? Buuut, that’s in France or some weird place and its too far for anyone who reads this AAR so let’s go to Adal, why not, I’m having a royal marriage there in celebration of my government change to a Feudal Monarchy. See, its all relative.



First let me get rid of these ugly rebels, ugh. There, now I’m pretty enough for Adal. Ah, now I feel cleaner than Mary Jane Kelly after a slow night.

After some thinking on the matter I’ve notice my Chapter titles mean nothing when faced with the text and pics its supposed to cover. And out of habit, I capitalize the word Chapter no matter where I place it. Getting back into the spirit of my chapters meaning something this next bit of news gives some *maybe* definition to my reasons. In 1481 Naples declared war on the Mamluks. I was in heaven and was granted all my gifts early. But there’s a trick... the Mamluks don’t have friends. Not even the kind you can buy because they’re also at war with other nations.

The Mamluks v. (various alliances) Naples, the Ottoman Empire, Candar, Lithuania, Yaroslavl, Poland, Pisa and Mantua.

Royal marriages followed with the Ottomans and an alliance. This is sweeter than when I picked up some cherry pie at a Warrant concert.



And imagine my surprise when a few months later they joined me in my war against Sardinia!

Algiers, Montenegro, OE, Munster and GH v. Venice, Mantua, Aquileia, Brandenburg and Corsica.



On a side note, these guarantees in IN are ridiculous! Everyone guarantees everyone when you get to a certain point that its almost impossible to expand. It’d be nice to have this network primarily exist with the HRE but beyond that its annoying. Trying to find a vulnerable opponent is like trying to find Waldo... or Walley or wherever you’re from (he had different names in different parts of the world.) I know, I have a lot of useless information, a treasure trove of the unwanted. I guess that explains these puppies with their sad eyes.



I thought, “Hey, maybe I’ll be able to take down Mantua.”



Which seemed to work



While another army marched into Sardinia.

My victory (singular) in Milan would be shortlived when I encountered an insane Venetian stack. I sure could’ve used some global warming back then... and now too, its still cold. Anyone got any spare aerosol?

Meanwhile in Germany Brandenburg was sending over her own stack. I had to run away into Munster until the universally awesome Brandenburg agreed to let me pay them 25 ducats. But those are still some scary numbers because my allies aren’t helping at all!



Two months later (November 1483)



and three days later



They were happy to become a part of the Greater Algiers. I’ve learned from past mistakes and these people will receive no camels. That’s right, NO CAMELS! Not even the ones with lopsided humps or as they say in California, “The Valley Girl Before Plastic Surgery.”

A month later I was able to weasel a white peace with Aquileia, leaving me at war with Milan and Venice. Notice they only have three ships between the three of them so I have no fear of invasion. If they could invade that’d probably make conquering them so much easier.



By February I lost four regiments in Milan, testing the waters. Apparently there’s sharks in that pond ready and rearing to eat that Kintner boy. (Oh I know you know that one! Just think about old movies.)

Okay, so technically my allies were helping but you know allies. They’ll only show up with their navy, a minimal military force and do relatively nothing. So I relied on myself, stacking some of my units in Mantua, relying on the Montenegran/OE distraction and hoping I could get Milan to crumble before anything bad happened.



Woo! Bribes do work.



The Italian invaders (yes, technically we declared war but let’s not get caught up in trivial things) were put down and forced to become vassals, paying 75 ducats. A day later Venice agreed to my peace, ceding Azow to the Golden Horde (anything to weaken Venice), renouncing their Corsica claim and paying 50. I’m beginning to like this guarantee system more and more.

Oh! And the Timurids. I love the Timurids.

PrawnStar: All I wanted was Corsica and I figured Corsica’s allies couldn’t get to my ships in time before I disembarked. Mantua was luck.

PrawnStar said:

I wonder why I remember the video far better than the song

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Two words: Bobbie Brown... its too bad this Warrant song gets the most play because its so bad. Still, the worst 80's song is better than any of that Grunge junk.

demokratickid: Timurids are the best, aren’t they? I’m sure glad they were able to stick it out so far.

Azugal: I thought you were gone for a while, though I thought you devolved back into lurker status.

aldriq: Exploit is such an ugly word. Let’s call it “seizing an opportunity.” If those spies weren’t so effective in Mantua I would’ve had to run away and call the whole thing off. Still, the guarantees go a little too far and I hope Paradox fixes it in the future.

1486 (what? No opening?) began with a startling declaration of war from the Ottomans on the, on somebody else. OE, GH, Iraq, Algiers, Bosnia and Serbia v. Venice, Tuscany, Naples, Aquileia, Achaea and Morea... by now I’m sure you’re beginning to notice a redundancy to nations I’m put up against. By the way, I’ll be hiding.

Six months later I signed a white peace with Venice, getting out of the war. This, and other peace deals ought to tell you something about my play. If I’m going to get slaughtered I may say I’ll help but I never will. And if you’re ever on my side in multiplayer please forget these last lines... although the chances of me going into that area are very unlikely considering the nasty arguments that often develop in multiplayer AARs.



Now that Venice is out of the way how about something more my size. Ah, Crete.



Me and my guys v. the mighty Crete

And -



That was fast. I didn’t even have time to finish my sentence.

1489 and I’ve asked the Golden Horde six times in a row to buy Azow and each time they refused on a Maybe. Sometimes this game is so annoying... at least I was able to ditch my +1 stability advisor after reaching +3. But I’m never easily appeased. Oooh, candy!



I ended up ditching my raise prestige mission because that was impossible at my rate...



Well, that ones impossible too. Technically it isn’t impossible to declare war on Hannover but Hannover’s alliance is more juiced than McGwire*, Sosa*, Bonds*, MLB 1995-2005*... I think you get the point.

On the seventh try I was able to sell Azow to the Golden Horde come 8 February 1490 for 1040 (I miswrote earlier when I said it automatically went to GH.) They’re like the native tribes in that they had no use for money except to give it to the Europeans... and North Africans. Tasty.



And I moved a slider toward centralization with rebellious results... rebels at this point are more of a headache than anything.



In the same year the Mamluks annexed Dulkadir which was nice on two fronts: It strengthened the Mamluks in the face of Ottoman expansion and it freed up a 2 star master of mint, which I brought into my expanding court. Things aren’t nearly as bad as I thought they’d be but I was farther ahead in my 1.3 game than I am now.

At the start of 1491 the Ottomans declared war again (having already w.p. with Venice) on Georgia. Again I help but only take war taxes. I’m glad my people understand. I hope they realize I’m going to need a few hundred more years of their understanding.

Later in September GH arranged a royal marriage with me and I offered to take more war taxes when the Timurids declared war on Khorsan.




That ought to give you some idea of how things look. It isn’t the prettiest picture but it could always be worse, for example, I could’ve slapped Paris Hilton’s face up there. But if I did that you’d probably scream and never come back to this room again. That wouldn’t be the worst of it; the worst of it would be that I’d have to go through pictures of Paris Hilton, a task I wouldn’t be able to stomach.

Then! 1492, the year when some Algiers guy didn’t sail the ocean blue. But I did take QftNW even though I couldn’t quest quite yet with no colonists available (you’d think they’d give you one.) Celebrations were had in marriages with Adal and Iraq and I married my own second cousin to an Afghan warlord. It seemed like a good idea at the time and I’m now fifteenth in line of succession.



While we wait for that colonist...

Azugal said:

Any chance we can see a map of all your holdings? It's a problem with being out of the loop for a few weeks and trying to catch up. o

Click to expand...

I didn't take any world map pics until 1600 because I thought I was going to do the AAR a bit differently but I'll be working on a European/North African map update for 1500 to be released next week (unless I get it done sooner to fit with a proper update which is likely) and later a 1550 one. To tide you over, here's a quick draft from memory so some places may be a little off but overall, its close enough.

Black are vassals, (they may be misplaced), ugly yellow/green is Algiers, Portugal is green and Spain is yellow.