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unmerged(84806)

Lt. General
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Sep 30, 2007
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  • Divine Wind
  • For The Glory
Kara Koyunlu's dash for Greatness​

Welcome to the EU2 Succesion Game where we will play as Kara Koyunlu. If you're unsure what this is all about, take a look in the Succession Game discussion thread.

The roster is full at the moment, but if you want to play, you can join as a reserve. Even if you don't want to join, feel free to comment, come with suggestions etc.

Game Settings:

EU2 Version: 1.09
Mod: AGCEEP 1.54 Deluxe
Scenario: Grand Campaign
Country: Kara Koyunlu
Random Events: On
Fog of War: On
Dynamic Missions: Off
Forced Annexation: On
Difficulty: Very hard/weakling
Victory Conditions: Standard (victory points)​

Reporting:

When it's your turn and you got the save, post "Got it", so the other players are aware that you will play your turn. Posting a short plan for what you're going to do in your turn is also highly recommended.

When writing the report, be sure to keep it detailed (gameplay information is good!) and adding a few pictures is also good. Explain your actions. When playing, a good tip is to use the F11 key often! Remember to use PrintScreen when events pop up. The report can be written in whatever style you like.

If you get in a situation where your actions could change the future for our nation considerably (like declaring war on large nations), stop playing and ask the other players what their take on the sitation is. Note: it's not important to stop playing when DoW'ing minors we have a CB on.

When you have uploaded the report, remember to upload the save too. You find the save in ...\EU2\ACGEEP\Scenarios\Save Games. Since the savefile will get quite big, zip the file. Upload it to free hosting sites like www.savefile.com (You know other free hosting sites?).

The report should contain a small debriefing: Post what our BB, inflation, stability and treasury is, in addtion to who we got CB on. Also post a overview map from the end of your turn (in political map view).

Rules:

- Our reputation is golden. Do NOT forceannex. Try to keep our BB below 10 when we're weaker than our neighbours. Other than that, try to play honorable.
- Your turn is 5 years of gameplay. It can be extended to 10 years if the first 5 years are very uneventful.
- 24 hours to report "Got it". 48 hours to play and report your turn.
- Try to keep minting on a minimum - don't mint if we are over 15% inflation.​
See this post for more general rules/guidelines.

Goals:

- Stay alive. Survive the onslaught from Timruid Empire that surely will come.
- Get rid of Ak Koyunlu. It's important that they are gone before 1467!
- Form the Safavid Empire
- Kick some Ottoman ass when we're ready for it.
- Forceconvert as many sunni nations as possible to shiite.
You have any other suggestions for goals?

Roster:

1. Olav
2. Lordling
3. Lurken
4. Dell19
5. Sir El'WoN
6. Brian Roastbeef

Reserves:

Thrashing Mad
Dark Scipio
 
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Status in 1419

Domestic Status: (Economy/Military/Domestic Policies)

militaryic3.jpg

Kara Koyunlu (KK) starts with 4 provinces. These provinces are guarded by the Kara Koyunlu Horde, led by Kara Yusuf, who also happens to be the monarch of our nation. With 100% maintenance this army costs us 2.1 ducats per month. KK's supportable amount is 21 000 men, so we have room for 8 000 more.

domesticvj2.jpg

In addition to be an able man in the field, Kara Yusuf is also a very competent monarch. Lets hope he stays around for a while. :) The domestic policies settings are quite good. However we could need a bit more centralization. The +1 shock from offensive doctrine will surely come in handy.

provincesst2.jpg

Here are our 4 provinces. This is what I call cultural diversity! :) Armenia is the same as Kurdistan on the map. Even if Armenia and Azerbaijan is rich, our province income in all four provinces is low, so census taxes will be low too. Considering that our treasury is only 50 ducats, we need to get some more money fast.

Kara Koyunlu got only Turkish as state culture, which is a problem here, as we only have one turkish province. Not much to do about that, though. Same thing for religion - the best thing to do here is of course to convert them, but we can't afford that at the time being. Tolerance sliders will be moved, though.

We start with 10% inflation.

Technology wise our nation is backwards: level 0 in all techs.

- Things I suggest to do:

Set maintenance to 50%. One click to centralization. Set the religious sliders. Research infra level 1.

Political/diplomatic status:

diplovg9.jpg


diplo2bu6.jpg

We're surrounded by enemies and we got no allies. Timurid empire is allies to Ak Koyunlu, the Mameluks are allied to Dulkadir and Ramazan. Our vassals Iraq and Basrah are allied.

Kara Koyunlu got cores on Kirkuk, Azerbaijan and Tabriz (which we own), in addition to Iraq and Hamadan. I think Ak Koyunlu and Timurid Empire got cores on some of our provinces. We got CB on Yemen and Al-Haasa because they're shiite.

Even if the starting point looks dire diplomatically wise, we fortunately got some friends. The Ottoman Empire could be our protector for a while. They're allied to Wallachia, Bosnia and Albania, so they have room for another member.

- Things I suggest to do:

Join Otto's alliance when we get a diplomat. Ak Koyunlu and the Timurids will think twice before they attack us if we're allied to OE.

If an opportunity arises, declare war on one of the minors, and take all their money.

Wait until the Timurid Empire disintegrate, then take lots of provinces. :)

Take out Ak Koyunlu before 1467-68. This is very important (take a look in the event file if you don't believe me ;)). If the situation gets critical, we have to forceannex them ourselves.

By the way, do you feel okay with looking in the event file? I have played Kara Koyunlu before, so I remember some of the events.

Alright, that was my two cents. What is your take on the situation?

---

Roster - Round 1:

1. Olav (Up)
2. Lordling (On Deck)
3. Dell19
4. Lurken
5. Brian Roastbeef (visitor)
6. - (Thrashing Mad?)

I'll play my turn in ~24 hours.
 
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Olav said:
By the way, do you feel okay with looking in the event file? I have played Kara Koyunlu before, so I remember some of the events.

Yeah, I'd like if we could come to a consensus on this, too. As I've never played the Black Sheep before, and very rarely play Muslim nations, I'd like to know what I can or should not look at as a guide. Particularly if my turn happens by chance to end up around 1467.

Speaking of 1467, will we need to break our forceannex rule to get rid of Akkoyunlu in time, or is it one of those automatic event type things? (i.e. England occupying all Dauphin provinces during HYW) If we do know we're going to have to annex then, best to stay as light as possible on the BB in the preceding years.

As for what to do next... I don't know... Are we on Timurid cores? If not, maybe we should try to get them friendly, and ease some pressure off of our eastern border. I think Kara Koyunlu only has Turkish as a core (not sure what we'd have as Safavids) so I can't see us wanting to expand in that direction at this point, even if we could. If we are on their cores, though, keeping them friendly will be hard... probably not worth the money, with as little as we'll have...
 
I don't mind taking a look in the event file. :)

I'm afraid we won't inherit Ak Koyunlu's provinces if we control all of them. We have to get them forceannexed, one way or another. The best thing to do is to get them down to one province, and hope someone else (our allies, for example) annex them. I tried this in my game some months ago, and the plan failed, so I had to annex them myself. So it's best to stay light on the BB in the preceding years, as you mentioned.

We are on one Timurid core yes (Tabriz). Ak Koyunlu got core on Kurdistan and Azerbaijan. Since we are very unfriendly and have little money, I don't think it's possible to get the Timurids on our side. We just have to wait until they disintegrate (1450ish). :) So we have to live in uncertainty for the first years, I'm afraid. As for expansion, it's best to wait until the Timruids disintegrate. Then we get lots of cores on their provinces. We won't have the right culture at that point, but when we form the Safavid Empire, we get Persian as culture.

Lordling and Lurken: You haven't said anything about prefered playing times - is it okay for you to take turns on both weekdays and in weekends?

I'll play my turn in a few hours. I won't do very much, just moving some sliders and get us into an alliance (preferably Otto's).
 
Cool, thats two then that support taking a look at the events. Lurken, Lordling, Dell, any opinions?

Getting an alliance with Ottomans is a good idea. Otherwise they tend to favor the Mameluks, and we don't need that early.

Well, then possibly when we fight Akkoyunlu we just bring in the Ottos. If we can get an independent peace with Sivas, then hopefully they'll occupy and annex Nuyssaybin.

Otherwise if we can't get in with the Ottos, the other option is an early war pulling the two-province minor grab-and-vassalize. Then try to diplo-annex in 25-30 years. I would think that to be hard to do though, as we don't currently have a CB, and if they refuse annexation in 1460 or so... that will be a hurried war to get them subdued. (Hopefully though they'd break vassalization and give a CB then...)

I don't think we should attack anybody without a CB though, particularly as we have to be on our best behavior for the first thirty years or so. So hopefully if we have to go that second route, the Akks will attack us. (Only 1 BB for Sivas... we could manage that ;))

Good luck, Olav. However many turns I actually end up playing, I'm very much into this and sure to keep a close eye here.
 
Getting an alliance with Ottomans is a good idea. Otherwise they tend to favor the Mameluks, and we don't need that early.
I have played my turn now, and we succeeded with getting into the alliance. :) I'll post the report as soon as possible.
Well, then possibly when we fight Akkoyunlu we just bring in the Ottos. If we can get an independent peace with Sivas, then hopefully they'll occupy and annex Nuyssaybin.
Yup, that would be the way to go. However, it can backfire in a way: if we are unlucky, Otto would capture both Sivas and their capital, and then take Sivas and forcevassalize Ak Kouyunlu in a peace deal. If Akk is a vassal of Otto, we will have a big problem.
Otherwise if we can't get in with the Ottos, the other option is an early war pulling the two-province minor grab-and-vassalize. Then try to diplo-annex in 25-30 years. I would think that to be hard to do though, as we don't currently have a CB, and if they refuse annexation in 1460 or so... that will be a hurried war to get them subdued. (Hopefully though they'd break vassalization and give a CB then...)
Yeah, that would probably be a bit too hard and risky. It should be quite easy to vassalize them, but I don't think we have good enough economy to bribe them up to +200 relations.
I don't think we should attack anybody without a CB though, particularly as we have to be on our best behavior for the first thirty years or so. So hopefully if we have to go that second route, the Akks will attack us. (Only 1 BB for Sivas... we could manage that ;))
Yeah, I agree to not attack without CB. Regarding Akk and CB: We will get a CB against Akk around 1466, so if they are reduced to one province at that time, we could take them out then.
Good luck, Olav. However many turns I actually end up playing, I'm very much into this and sure to keep a close eye here.
Thanks! And keep the comments and suggestions coming - discussion is the funniest part of the SG, IMO. :)
 
Turn 1, 1419-1424

1419:

I started the game by going one step to centralization. Hopefully our census taxes will increase a lill bit by this. I also reduced the army maintenance down to 50% (now costing us 1 ducat per month), set the religious tolerance sliders (no tolerance towards christians, equal tolerance to orthodox, sunni and shiite) and finally put all our research into infrastructure.

Our enemies to the east, the Timurids, are doing some suspicious manoeuvres:

shahruckhz2.jpg

Taking a look at Tabriz, are we?

When our first diplomat arrived in June, he was immediately sent to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, asking if they could need another alliance member. The Sultan thought obviously this was a good idea, and accepted.

The Timurid Empire must have felt threatened by this diplomatic action: only one month later they invited their vassal Ak Koyunlu into a new alliance. (Akk doesn't start in an alliance with TE as I wrote in post #2.) With this new alliance, created to weaken Kara Koyunlu perhaps, better relations with OE had to be secured. Therefore a new diplomat was sent to the Sultan, and a royal marriage was arranged. Relations increased to +160. The OE will now surely aid their friend in the east if a war errupts there.

1420:

Ak Koyunlu and the Timurids weren't Kara Koyunlu's only enemies. The Mamluks were also hostile towards us. A royal marriage was therefore arranged with the Mamluks to prevent hostilites.

In May our infrastructure was improved (to level 1). We don't have enough ducats to promote any bailiffs, though (42 ducats in our treasury: Currently our census taxes doesn't make up for the monthly loss).

On the 14th of November, Kara Yusuf died. He was replaced by Kara Iskandar:

iskandarhm7.jpg

It is good to be the Ki... Kara

1421:

The first years for Kara Koyunlu had been peaceful, but in this year it would come to an end. Our vassal, Basrah (allied to Iraq), cancelled the vassalization in April. Since we now had a CB against them, I saw this as an excellent opportunity to get some money. Both Basrah and Iraq had no armies, so the war would be a cakewalk:

krigmj1.jpg

The army was splitted into two, one with only infantry, the other with only cavalry. Sadly, Iraq started training an army before their capital was besieged.

Both Basrah and Iraq was looted bewteen May/June. The loot was minted, so we could now afford to promote the bailiff in Azerbaijan.

In July our LT increased to level 1. The next month the Iraqian army was deployed (3000 cavarly), but they lost to our infantry and fled to Kirkuk. They wouldn't create any more trouble for our besieging armies. Iraq was captured in November, and the first peace offers started coming. They were only offering around 30-60 ducats though.

1422:

Our trade level increased to level 1 in February. Some months later Basrah was captured. Iraq still had some cavalry left in Kirkuk, but they were quickly defeatet by the Kara Koyunlu Horde. With 100% warscore on both nations, peace could have been concluded now, but I decided to keep looting the provinces. Sooner or later they will have amassed enough money for us so we could end the war.

In November naval technology level 1 was researched. The loot from Iraq and Basrah was minted, and the bailiff in Tabriz was promoted.

1423-24:

This year would be remembered for a while in Kara Koyunlu's realm:

excyearzs8.jpg

:eek: Talk about luck! Inflation was reduced to 8.7%. The money was used to promote the bailiffs in Kurdistan and Kirkuk.

At the first of January 1424, Kara Koyunlu is still in war against Basrah and Iraq.

mapts4.jpg

No big changes here

Treasury: 247 ducats
Inflation: 8.8%
BB: 0.6
Stability: +3


The save: http://www.savefile.com/files/1248951
---

Alright, that was my first turn. Fortunately the Timurids or the Akks didn't attack us. I guess they won't do much as long as we have Otto on our side. Regarding Otto; try to stay in his alliance as long as possible, even if he does some serious warmongering in Europe.

By the way, I haven't used any merchants yet, so our trading income is 0. As for research, infra level 2 is not far away. I recommend switching to LT after that, so we can keep up with Otto.

Other than that I can't come up with anything. Just stay passive until TE disintegrates.

Roster - Round 1

1. Olav (Done)
2. Lordling (Up)
3. Dell19 (On Deck)
4. Lurken
5. Brian Roastbeef
6. -

Over to you, Lordling. Good luck!
 
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I'm going to be away for the remainder of today, as well as tomorrow and the day after, so I think, if it's possible, I think I'll need to pass this round. I have nothing else lined up for the remainder of this year, (sadly), so this should be the only incidence of this.
 
Peace returns 1424 -1429

Kara Koyunlu were still at war however effectively the war was already over and all that remained was to organise a peace treaty. The exceptional year meant that Kara Koyunlu was already rich however that didn't mean that Iraq or Basrah would be let off lightly.

Whilst negotiations continued a diplomat was sent north to arrange a royal marriage with Shirvan which was accepted and marked an improvement in our relations. As a nation with a poor Turkish province it may make sense to one day diplomatically annex them although it may not be worthwhile particularly if the Ottomans continue to lead our alliance.

Finally Iraq agreed to give us 100 ducats, military access and once again become our Vassals. The military access was necessary to be able to get our troops back from Basrah who eventually offered 124 ducats for peace which was accepted.

kk1zs7.jpg


There would be two further events that would give rise to new possibilities in the future. The first event was the arrival of 5000 cavalry. Unfortunately Ak Koyunlu appeared to also gain 5000 troops so the decision was made to keep them for the time being.

kk2hw7.jpg


The second event recognised the great diplomacy of our King. With 500 ducats in the treasury the decision was made to send three gifts to Iraq which improved relations to 200. Iraq had been building troops continually since our war ended and it seemed prudent to improve our relations. Particularly as once our alliance expires with the Ottomans we may be able to become the alliance leader and invite Iraq which would allow us to diplomatically annex them - surely they would not be able to resist our offer?

kk3gk7.jpg


Ak Koyunlu remains a target for war however our hands are tied until their alliance ends with the Timurids and additionally the Ottomans have Murad leading their armies and he would surely demand to take charge of any siege. Ak Koyunlu are currently trying to convert their capital. We have the opportunity to convert our provinces however we are likely to one day change religion and the success rates are low. The next player will be able to immediately change our domestic policy sliders.
 
Good going! I must say we have been lucky with the random events so far. It's also nice to have good relations with Iraq. Maybe we should diploannex them in 10 years, and don't wait for 30 years? Did you send state gifts or personal gifts?

Good thing you waited with converting. We will get many convertions for free once we form the Safavid Empire. Instead we could maybe use the money on sending merchants around, or build a fortress in Tabriz?

Roster - Round 1:

1. Olav (done)
2. Dell19 (done)
3. Lurken (up)
4. Brian Roastbeef (on deck)
5. Sir El'WoN
6. -
 
I tend to only build fortresses if I have lots of spare cash or there is a province with a low support limit that the AI is likely to siege.

I sent personal gifts as I find the only reason to send state gifts is if you have a lack of diplomats.
 
Good turns. Lucky randoms early on here. The gift to the state and the wars really have given us some breathing room for money in this difficult stage of the game. Do we have tax collectors everywhere yet?