"IN DIRE STRAITS" Ongoing Diplomacy/AAR thread

[shaldon]

Sunday 7pm CET - Current year 1760

See latest posts in this thread for news.

Simon (GM/England).

Current Roster:

France - Captain Panda (Host/Co-GM)
England - Shaldon (GM)
Sweden - Bukowsky
Austria - Crinkled?
Ottoman Empire - Piter?
Russia - Oskar
Portugal - Alfonso
Holland - Zeitgeist

House Rules

1) No childish or abusive behaviour will be tolerated
2) No map-trading until 1650, and never with the AI
3) Any treaties that are struck for province exchanges between players are subject to 'admin costs'
(deleted from buyer treasury) as follows:
i) For territorial exchanges minimum admin fee of 100 for city, 25 for Trading post.
If 10% of total deal price is HIGHER than that, then the 10% applies instead.
ii) For non-territorial exchanges (e.g warships), 10% admin fee applies to sale amount.
If a player loses more than 3 provinces per session in this manner, that player is subject to a -1 stab hit rule
per three provinves (after the first three, which have no stab penalty). This is to reflect upheaval caused by
losing your possesions and also discourage players from conquering provs just to sell them on. Trade Posts count as 1/2 prov for this.
For an edit to take place, you must have either
i) Paid the seller in-game in the previous session, and have enough money in your treasury to cover the admin costs at end of session.
ii) Have the full amount (sale amount + admin) in your treasury.
iii) Have the admin costs in the treasury and both players involved and the GM must agree that the payment can be made in game in the next session.
4) If losing a war, player must accept stab-hitting peace if at -99% war score and -3 stab
UNLESS by GM ruling that the player is staging a comeback in which case they get 6 months to fight on.
5) There is NO limit to provinces gained or lost by peace. If you see another player taking a lot of provs
in a peace deal then as a fellow European ruler it is YOUR responsibility to ensure something is done. If you
do not then you have no grounds for complaint if one power becomes uber later in the game.
Please be aware from game start of this rule if you are not used to this.
6) No culture claiming is allowed under any circumstances.
7) Pirates may be placed only once per year per player. Abuse of this breaks rule #1.

[Elio Vasa]

[QUOTE=shaldon]Thanks to all who played in the first session

There was a little order, but on next session it'll improved.
Check if there is a link to stats or screenshots.
I procedeed on development, not wars after wars.
There are so many years, maybe Von D. and OE aren't very patient
Well done both Host and GM (facts not opinions).
I learnt after the game about PM to allied.

[Black_Knight]

Ok, I just wrote up a beautiful post but vBulliten told me I couldn't post etc. So here's the quick version.

Denmark allied with Sweden (Human) and Brandenburg (Human) and Holstein originally. Sweden dropped early and was from then until rehost a zombie doing nothing. Brandenburg and Denmark attacked Mecklenburg (Holstein broke the Alliance), but were consistantly destroyed militarily even though Denmark had two historical leaders. Anyways, Denmark finally gained control of Mecklenburg after 2/3 of Brandenburg had been taken by Pommern. Peace gave Denmark a new vassal in Mecklenburg, but destroyed the Danish army and Brandenburg's economy. Denmark soon was in financial trouble managing to go bankrupt, but still upgraded many of its fortresses/bailiffs/colonies and added a Fine Arts Manufactury in Sjaeland. Trade is good.

We saved while Denmark/revived AI Sweden/Brandenburg were at war with Saxony/Wurzburg and not doing too well. Never came into real contact with any other Human countries

[von Diplomacy]

As to the rumors of Austrian agression, all that the Austrian soon to become double crown is going to even replay to these rumors as they are senseless illogical and not very understanding rumors.

Let me exlpain: Genoa under the disquise of a friend invades Lombardia- Milan. I stated to her before that if she attack Milan- Spain's vassal! Austria will react, as it is well known that Austria hisotrically annexes Milan. Genoa without taking the consequnces in mind invaded, I wanted to send a warning but due to a lack of diplomats that was porspond.
And that the war begun. Austria waged war sending her forces to the line of battle, suffering somewhat hummliating loses due to poor infantry that our allies send to be slauthered and reduce moral. And so it was- Genoa surrendered. The only demand- Free Lombardia as Milan. Somehow in a very bad and tricky way GERMANY was created, not milan. Austria promised revange for that savage action.

It took austria 3 month to regroup her troops from their vication along peaceful austria and an army of 20 thousnad Cavlry troops was grouped. "Germany" fell hopelessly and so did Emilia and Tuscnay.

Austriap promising revange annexed Milan, but accepted the meek proposal of Emilia to be vasilized. Venice then declared an insantic war upon the Ottoman hordes. A cross wide alliance peace was agreed moments later, and VEnice was banned for that stupidaty.

In came our ally tuscany, together we will make sure that Italy will not stay Paple, as due to the France request, The pope is gonna be crucified.

After tha diplomatical phase. Austria retired for a few years of peace, where she got a good grip over her allies and a bound of friendship was made- Austria now has a few vassals in the immediate close quarters.

The game ended after some minors waged war on Austria, and now fiercome battles are going on.



Maxlimunin III

[Captain Panda]

France in all it´s glory was looking forward to a period of peace and prosperity. This was quickly shattered by Austrian aggression against the peaceful and kind Genoa, who had no other motive than to unite the italian people. After a harsh diplomatic exchange Austrria attacked and regained Milan, France was poised to strike back but she managed to restrain herself, not wanting all of Central Europe to descend into war.

I was unsuccessful in my attemots to unite France, one very strange thing was that the Vassalization of Bourbonnais began in 1517? So I can´t diploannex them until 1527??? Is this designed by the scenario or a bug? It seems very silly. Also brittany refused annexation and broke off vassalization after 2 tries.

All in all a pretty good session, although some confusion reigned, luckily we only managed to play 13 years so if anyone wants to switch country(Genoa for example) This is definitely the time to do it cos I don´t it will be very practical after another session.

I thought the hosting bit went wuite well too, my 8Mbit line definitely showed it´s worth and I think we can up the speed a bit next time.

[molian]

/// thanks for saving portugal for me, but i think i will not be able to play any games on future because my father has decided to take my computer as i dont want to go to school (as a punishment i guess)
goodbye to all of you and have a nice game on sunday

[shaldon]

The King of England began the campaign by bringing an immediate end to the Irish revolts, not through the iron fist but by graciously granting Eire independence as a vassal and retiring the troops to Ulster. This left a war-torn Ireland to descend into chaos as Connaught, Leinster and Munster all declare independence - but hey, that's not England's fault. Eventually, Connaught emerges as the dominant force and the Knights of St. John acquire a foothold as rulers as one of the Irish provinces. The King of Connaught even goes on to become Holy Roman Emperor!

Meanwhile in Europe all hell had broken loose over the Genoese request for Lombardy. Spain and England, although allied to Milan, agree to turn a blind eye and Genoa soon declares war and annexes the province. Austria, however, takes offence at this and uses his military might to force Genoa to release the province so Austria can annex it, or face destruction! This show of bullying did not go unnoticed by the other large powers however, despite Austria's protests that he should historically annex the province in the future (??!!!). Genoa's decision to release the province as Germany and not Milan was probably calculated defiance, but what else can Austria have expected under the circumstances?

As a result Genoa is ruined but all agree to allow the player to take Venice next week, where he must be prepared to face many new challenges we think.

Things were also going badly for Brandenburg in the North, who had immediately set out to conquer her AI neighbours. These had however banded together in an alliance and inflicted serious defeats upon Brandenburg. This led to Brandeburg coming close to bankruptcy and asking for a loan - we supplied all we could (which wasn't much). Sadly the Brandenburg player reneged on the repayment and now threatens to leave the game after ruining his country. And he seemed like such a nice guy...

As a result of one of the Brandenburg wars, England was drawn into war with Scotland - who had sided against Brandenburg leading to calls for English assistance to keep the Scots occupied. We duly complied, obviously for purely unselfish reasons . In this we were joined by our splendid and noble ally Spain, who was most co-operative every step of the way, allowing England control of all the sieges whilst still committing troops to help with the war effort.

After helping England to certain victory Spain took peace early for a small cash settlement but Scotland refused to deal with England over Strathclyde. This forced us to conquer all Scotland rather than just taking Strathclyde to control the important strait there - a most unfortunate circumstance. Eventually Scotland was forced to give up all provinces except the capital. Serves them right. However in a show of goodwill in keeping with the just and peaceloving nature of the English, the King has exempted the Scots from all taxes for a period of at least 20 years - thereby treating them better than the Government in Lothian, a fact which will hopefully not be forgotten by our Scottish brethren in the future.

As for our esteemed neighbour France, a Royal Marriage helped ensure peace although relations are still poor - that's what a previous hundred years of war does for you I guess. There has been no demand for Calais, the last English possession on the mainland, to be handed over to the French crown. For this the King praises the gracious French leader.

Meanwhile, our explorer John Cabot reports a vast undiscovered country to the West across the ocean! Amazing! English traders have begun the long voyage there, to join the small Spanish outposts already in place. What opportunities and challenges this new continent will present, only time will tell.

We await the next session eagerly, and hope for some stability and continuity amongst our fellow players from here on in. And a longer session this time....

[shaldon]

one very strange thing was that the Vassalization of Bourbonnais began in 1517? So I can´t diploannex them until 1527??? Is this designed by the scenario or a bug? It seems very silly.

I looked it up in Peter's thread and it's in there on purpose, presumably for some historical reason.

[Huangfu]

Well, the Moscovian Czar made a large mistake very earlier in his reign. To keep down insanely high maintance costs, half of the 60k that make up the Imperial army was disbanded. Only 2 months later our ally Pskov dragged us into a war against the TO. Since it later turned out that TO had 2 land techs above Moscovy, it is a wonder we weren't compleltely wipped out. We almost were though, Moscovy sent hordes of troops to be slaughtered, and 2 loans had to be taken out to keep up the meat grinder. Eventually peace was setteled in exchange for the TO giving us a few hundered gold, which didn't even cover our loans.
With the loans burning holes in Moscow's pockets, it was decided to spend all our time minting 100% which gave us the 400 total we needed to pay off our loans. The end left us with an inflation of 4.8% which is still less then what bankruptcy would've done. To keep up public morale a war was called against our former vassal Ryzan. The only great Moscovian general of the time, Shenja, was sent. He quickly won, and with the annexation of Ryzan all of Moscow's core lands were under it's control; with the expection of the TO province of Pskov. Around this time we left our ally Crimea, and joined with the grand Polish-Ottoman-Lithunia alliance. A new war was declared agaisnt the TO, but due to rebellions in the TO's lands doing better against us then the TO itself did we were cheated out of victory, since peace was declared without any say from us.

Despite all this. Moscovy is doing far better then it did 12 years ago. Our army problems have evaporated, our land tech has improved, 2 new great generals have joined us, we have a far better infrastructure and trading network, and in round three in a couple years we will crush the TO.

[Captain Panda]

I looked it up in Peter's thread and it's in there on purpose, presumably for some historical reason.

Thanks for checking, just seemed strange to me

[Druglord]

There are so many years, maybe Von D. and OE aren't very patient

I'm just returning to the EUII community (having gotten bored of Far Cry) so I'm kind of a half-n00b - if that even possible. Anyways...

The great Ottoman ruler Bâyezîd II immediately began a series of campaigns against his neighbors. Reaching into the depths of the Force , he sees a bleak future for The Imperial Empire ; full of low skill monarchs and petty revolters. Acting quickly, TIE annexes Dulkadir on the 4th of July, 1492 and then begins a war with the Mamelukes in which TIE gains 6 or 7 provinces. After rebuilding the army and promoting tax collectors everywhere, Bâyezîd II laughs evilly as Venice and their Rebel Alliance attempt to fight TIE. Unfortunately, after capturing three Venetian provinces, the Poles (leaders of the alliance) accept peace for some pitiful yellow rocks. Bâyezîd II is a trifle annoyed and doesn't invite them into TIE's subsequent wars in which he takes wallachia (vassalizes moldavia) and the last provinces of the Mamelukes. The Mamelukes have one province left and TIE has rebuilt its armies enough to be ready for another war with Venice and/or Persia. Venice has an alliance with Hungary (I think) so TIE will probably attack them first. Kill two stones with one bird. Or is it the other way around?

[Hazardous Moose]

First, a side note: Heh, Shaldon I was only upset after watching my army get humiliated by the lesser German minors again and again. I'm not leaving, I'm sticking with Brandenburg through thick and thin.

Now for the German perspective:

It is visible that Brandenburg's economy is rapidly declining, and she cannot support a sizeable army. Something must be done to stimulate the economy and keep Brandenburg from falling behind. The king's eyes turn toward Mecklenburg, as it seems the easiest place to achieve this stimulation, and one of the most profitable. After getting no reply from Poland, Brandenburg enters an alliance with Sweden and Denmark. Mecklenburg is allied with Hannover and Pommern, whose forces, it was later found, were greatly underestimated.

War is declared and the confident Brandenburg army of 18,000 marches to Mecklenburg. Even with supierority in numbers and strength, Brandenburg loses the battle and retreats to Madgeburg. Unfortunately, that's where Hannover was headed as well. With 20,000 troops, Hannover crushes the already demoralised Brandenburg army, and the remaining forces retreat to the capital province of Brandenburg. To the north, Pommern sits with 23,000 men. Things seem bleak for Brandenburg. But then, the Danes arrive to an empty Oldenburg, Hannover's newly acquired province, far behind the front lines. It is quickly taken over and the 21,000 strong Danish army marches on Hannover itself. Hannover completes its seige of Madgeburg and breaks off to engage the Danish forces. The remaining Brandenburg army of 7,000 sits in the capital, and Mecklenburg arrives to engage them. The army is completely annihiliated, and Brandenburg comes under seige. Only the remaining province of Kustrin can save the country. 6,000 troops are trained quickly, while Pommern's 23,000 men reinforce the Mecklenburg seige. This leaves Pommern completely empty, and more Danish forces arrive in Mecklenburg, taking the province. When the troops are ready, they march through Pommern's provinces, looting as they go, and arrive in Mecklenburg to greet the Danish forces. Over in Hannover, the Danish army loses to Hannover, and they not only retreat but abandon Oldenburg, heading back for Denmark. Hannover seiges the still Danish controlled Oldenburg, while Pommern and Mecklenburg seige Brandenburg. From Mecklenburg, the Brandenburg forces of only 4,000 (there was attrition in Mecklenburg) try to take back Madgeburg. They set up a seige, but then the 20,000 strong Pommern army leaves the seige of Brandenburg to fight the Brandenburg force in Madgeburg. However, the courageous Brandenburg force soundly overcomes the Pommern army, an amazing victory against an army five times their size. The tables turn, and the Danish make peace, vassalizing Mecklenburg in the process.

The armies go home...and Brandenburg must now rebuild. The rebuilding process occurs rapidly, only a few years. England, who Brandenburg considers a friend, gives a small loan to help. Seeing his country in shambles, Brandenburg's ruler temporarily loses his sanity, and inflation shoots up. He begins taking several bank loans and trains an army twice the amount the country can support. He declares war on Saxony and Wurzburg, who also seemed relatively weak at the time. Denmark agrees to aid Brandenburg in this war of expansion, but the campaign never gets off the ground as the Danes and Brandenburg lose their first battle. Saxony goes on to pound Madgeburg, and as it stands today, Saxony is seiging the capital with Madgeburg captured. Things once again look bleak, but this time neither Brandenburg or Denmark have an army to defend with.

Notes for the future: I obviously made many mistakes this time around, multiplayer is much different from singleplayer. It looks like giving Madgeburg to Saxony is inevitable, unless I can convince another country to join me. Then I will focus on economy and diplomacy, and start practicing "safety in numbers."

[von Diplomacy]

Venice has an alliance with Hungary (I think) so TIE will probably attack them first. Kill two stones with one bird. Or is it the other way around?

I truly hope you don't mean that great Byzad? Right? You are not trying to even suggest that you are going ot invade Hungary, or am I wrong? You are not planning to take Austrian soon to be Centers by aznd histrocial event triggered at 1540? ARe you trying to steal austria's expantion away from her?

[shaldon]

First, a side note: Heh, Shaldon I was only upset after watching my army get humiliated by the lesser German minors again and again. I'm not leaving, I'm sticking with Brandenburg through thick and thin.

Good man! England salutes you. Now where's my ducats???

[shaldon]

I truly hope you don't mean that great Byzad? Right? You are not trying to even suggest that you are going ot invade Hungary, or am I wrong? You are not planning to take Austrian soon to be Centers by aznd histrocial event triggered at 1540? ARe you trying to steal austria's expantion away from her?

I'm all for historical accuracy! :

"The Hungarian defeat (1526) at Mohács prepared the way for the capture (1541) of Buda and the absorption of the major part of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire"

"in 1683 a huge Turkish army under Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa surrounded Vienna. The relief of Vienna by John III of Poland (ready, wilko?) and the subsequent campaigns of Charles V of Lorraine, Louis of Baden, and Eugene of Savoy ended in negotiations in 1699 (see Karlowitz, Treaty of), which cost Turkey Hungary and other territories."

So Von D - 1699 for Hungary it is then?

[von Diplomacy]

Lol Shaldon, You are wrong. Have you ever played euii before?

Austrai annexes historcially diplomatically at 1540. At 1540 I get the whole of Hungary, that's the way it goes in EUII.

Of course I will share hungary with OE but not the whole of it for either of us.

[shaldon]

Lol Shaldon, You are wrong. Have you ever played euii before?

Austrai annexes historcially diplomatically at 1540. At 1540 I get the whole of Hungary, that's the way it goes in EUII.

Of course I will share hungary with OE but not the whole of it for either of us.

I was quoting historical fact, not EU2. In reality Austria probably annexes a couple of provinces - what's left of Hungary that the Ottomans didn't conquer by 1540.

But anyway, England won't meddle in these Eastern European affairs!

[tnbwilkohaxor]

well to say it was my 1st game i really enjoyed it, but i'll need more time to get in to it.
i take it the next game game is on sunday at the same time oh and some good reports there.

[shaldon]

well to say it was my 1st game i really enjoyed it, but i'll need more time to get in to it.
i take it the next game game is on sunday at the same time oh and some good reports there.

Yes, it's very early days yet!

Next session should start promptly at 8pm CET on Sunday or earlier if possible (as soon as everyone gets there!) - we were a bit late starting this week due to connection problems and last minute additions.

Looks like all of the regulars have checked in except for select, who played Genoa and wants to switch to Venice. We also could do with a Portugal so if you know anyone, let them know....Sweden could also be played if someone wants it.

[Elio Vasa]

The King of Spain started this Campaign, allied with the loyal King of England and the Lord of Milan, with as vassals the king of Naples and the Knights of Malta. Employing his total WS in 1492 he annexed Granada after war; in the same year the already ready navy under C. Colon's orders was sent to explore the new world from Caribbean isles to Atlantic coast of NA. Later we founded there a col in Gander and some TPs.
The absence (!) of a human Portugal adviced to mantain the starting borders and there was no DoW vs it, even if not allied with us. Other Countries like Papal S. or OE in Fez-Morocco was well regared to avoid DoWs.The northern border was made more safe attacking isolated Navarra (preceded by questions to France) and capturing Navarra prov in 1499. It costed only stab -1 but there is capital Bearn yet: for this act the promotion to Viscount (...) happened to us. There was no attempt for annexing Naples, because even in peace time that option never appeared. We gave a very little help to allied England in his Scotland's campaign; here our King declares to feel obliged to stronger presences wherever He would have to do. After Milan's annexion the King invited the vassal Knights of Malta in his MA.
About the game CP gained his Host title in some difficult situations, the same for a rivelation as our GM (Once I didn't play for sub's fault, once I played 1y, ...). No boorish act (it's a good persons' company), someone must collect experience in controlling his MP game and versus the other humans.