Mecklenburg: Shadow WC

[Slinky]

I haven't followed a WC in IN yet, so this should be interesting. When going for a WC I find the end game rather boring. It becomes more of a whack the rebel than real tactics. Any plans to keep it interesting till the end.

Evil Genius is absolutely brilliant. I dusted my copy of not long ago.
World tremble before my evil mind! Mhuhahaha!

[rasmus40]

Don't forget to modify the german unification decision! So that you will actually recieve cores and not Mecklenburg when you are Germany,

Could you direct me to a thread where I can find the changes I'll need to make to this event? If I don't do that before it fires my head will explode with anger when I don't get the cores

This is going at a good pace so far. I love the many screens

[Rabid]

If you're planning to form Prussia, I think there's a bug with that event too in that it's supposed to change your primary culture to Prussian, but it doesn't. I don't know if there's a way to mod the event to make it work right, I just edited my save

Prussian culture is a minor but nice bonus since your core saxon and pommeranian provinces very quickly convert to Prussian as well giving you 100% tax in all those provinces.

[PrawnStar]

Some nice work there in Germany! I guess your BB is going to allow you to steal that province from Brunswick as well?

[Elcyion]

Still a bit slow unddu :P,,, Maybe vassaling the 5 minors instead of just taking gold and annexing pommeria.

[unddu]

I haven't followed a WC in IN yet, so this should be interesting. When going for a WC I find the end game rather boring. It becomes more of a whack the rebel than real tactics. Any plans to keep it interesting till the end.

Evil Genius is absolutely brilliant. I dusted my copy of not long ago.
World tremble before my evil mind! Mhuhahaha!

Making sure WE will stay below 1 will prevent the rebel whack-a-mole. At least partially

Could you direct me to a thread where I can find the changes I'll need to make to this event? If I don't do that before it fires my head will explode with anger when I don't get the cores

This is going at a good pace so far. I love the many screens

If you love screens then you're in for a treat.

If you're planning to form Prussia, I think there's a bug with that event too in that it's supposed to change your primary culture to Prussian, but it doesn't. I don't know if there's a way to mod the event to make it work right, I just edited my save

Prussian culture is a minor but nice bonus since your core saxon and pommeranian provinces very quickly convert to Prussian as well giving you 100% tax in all those provinces.

I also think there is a bug resetting *all* the core timers as well, when forming Prussia. I wont change anything though, not even for the Germany event. I want to make sure everyone can copy what I did

S

ome nice work there in Germany! I guess your BB is going to allow you to steal that province from Brunswick as well?

Ill just wait till my BB has cooled down 1 point if need be, I will have that province

Still a bit slow unddu :P,,, Maybe vassaling the 5 minors instead of just taking gold and annexing pommeria.

Vassalising them now, means dowing them later anyways, I wont be DAing at all

[unddu]

And there we have it: The bb cools down and I can take Brunswick.



Brabant is smacking the Danes around and showing them how a war is really fought. Too bad they wont capitalize on their gains!



Baden? My bb is almost at it's limit and *now* they pick baden as HRE?

Normally I would rejoice, but this time I cant use this, I mean even a DoW would mean BB wars ^^



Denmark gets of cheap, but I need the cash, I'm not making enough money to fuel my war machine.



My bb.

And my empire without any kinks

And just to follow up some years later another round of taking hits at someone whos down! With added crusade benefits to boot!



I have also been buildig a lot of troops as can be seen in the following screenie, 20k cav and 5k inf.



I let TO take the brunt of the Polish resistance, no point in endangering my precious troops.



Small siege armies to prevent any we and half of my cav remaining in the Mecklenburg heart lands , to make sure rebellions wont stab me in the back when Im least prepared !

After the initial skirmish between TO and Poland, I move in. The enemy is demoralised even though they won the battle with TO. Too bad my king is just shock 2. Shock 6 would have been great here!



Poland strikes again though, but the retreat after 5 days tactic will save my hiney, as well as the second 10k cav army moving in for the rescue:



Too bad things don't always pan out the way I want them to, The poles actually lose that battle and move to Sandomierz.... Damn them!



As you can see I hired a general and he turns out to be a 3 shock one. Aristocracy rules!



My small stack in sadomierz has to pull out, for obvious reasons.



Let's analyse this screen a bit :

A) I destroy the entire polish stack, I used the retreat tactic, and went back to Poznan, The ai thought they had won the day and simply followed me. I rinsed and repeated , untill the AI stopped following me at which point I just started following them, with said result.

B) A soothin sight for sore eyes: rebels in Mazovia. And as we all know rebels popping in Mazovia tend to be quite numerous! I'll let the Poles have fun with them

C) Hungary moving in for the kill. Not at TO though, but at their Arch nemesis; RIGA!

D) I declined the war with Riga, I mean To is too weak an ally at this stage, because they wore the brunt of my enemies armies ^^ I also dont want -1 stab for no good reason, what do I care for Riga?





And to safeguard my future: I give mill access to all potential Mecklenburg haters

\

Austria



France



The Danes are reaping the rewards for DoWing me. I guess that takes care of that problem. Hungary seems hellbend on annihilating poor Riga!



Sure ! I've never seen a Hungary performing this well, so I welcome them aboard. They will be the replacement for worn out TO.



What a beautifull nation they build! It's almost like they wanted their empire to be as round as possible. Perfectly defendable. Kudos to Hungary!



I just keep on marching, Poland is defeated anyway and their allies are nowhere to be found.



Checking BB in order to gauge the amount of Provinces im allowed to take.



I wont move further, thats around 8k Poles still standing there and I'm now bordering Bohemia and Lithuania. I don't want to waste my precious mp at this stage.



Cash and three more provinces. I dislike a streched out empire, but what choice do I have ?



Eh what?

Angry for not joining your pointless little war while you helped me out against far larger foes?

And while im battling rebels to boot!



Ill just let them come to me, good thing Hungary is my best buddy now! They can now tire themselves against the Proto_Prussians.

1441 Map

1448 Map

[rasmus40]

You're still making good progress although BB is really holding you back. You really need a good diplomat or two...

Is there a particular good reason you're picking on Poland, or is it just because he is weak?

[PrawnStar]

Go Creek, while you can

Danzig and Warmia this time around?

[slokiller]

Looks like expansion is coming nicely. Is goal to take a big hunk of the TO or to just take danzing and Warmia, then reduce that BB abit?

[unddu]

You're still making good progress although BB is really holding you back. You really need a good diplomat or two...

Is there a particular good reason you're picking on Poland, or is it just because he is weak?

The reason is two fold:

a) Poland is not that strong.
b) I get free dows since they were foolish enough to ally and guarantee Sunni Nations. Dowing for free is a major boon, dont forget that a dow costing stab will cost an equivalent amount of WE

And there are no diplomats to be found! Combine that with a crappy diplo king and what do you get? Large pauses that's what

Go Creek, while you can

Danzig and Warmia this time around?

we will see ...... in the next update ^^

Looks like expansion is coming nicely. Is goal to take a big hunk of the TO or to just take danzing and Warmia, then reduce that BB abit?

Well they dowed me, not the other way around. If BB allows it I will take what I can

[unddu]

I didnt take anything at all it seems I guess my BB was too close for comfort. And now we have France as the HRE No more venturing into Germany at all, as long as they call the shots. Wouldn't want the well known 30k stack of doom with the lucky +1 shock king gallavanting in my backyard.



w00t? Warning finally paid of! Look at that. A war with Lith Muscovy and Poland and all I got to do is accept



Which I did! Haha I fear nothing. I'm currently building as much troops as my land limit allows me. My economy can't pay for it, but what the heck as long as I go to war every time I can I can extort money from the beaten nations. I hope...

As you can see I use slightly larger stacks, since Im scared. I mean Lith has a lot of troops are itching for combat and Muscovy has a lot of cav ready to swarm into my precious lands. If I would use 3k stacks now they would get destroyed instantly. I also suspect Muscovy to be lucky!? I'm not sure which nations are lucky when choosing historical (besides France Austria England Ottomans Castille Sweden).

My cav is moving in to kill the 3k stack in Podlasia, I normally hate attacking, Id rather defend, but I have to take make use of every opportunity to exact some damage on Lith.

Meanwhile the German Minors seem hellbend on choosing the worst possible emperor.



Do they want to get gobbled up? Do they want to be united into a greater France? Please fix this Pdox this can't be working as intended! France as the HRE....



Meanwhile my cav is going around carefully picking of smaller stacks, still no sign of Muscovies stacks of cav. I guess they are beating Zaph back to the stone age.

I used by *best* general for the job, 3 shock. I wont engage the large lith stacks offensively. I would only lose extra men.

If I can get somewhere before they can though and kill the small stack while the large stack is still incoming it's all good. I must make sure to kill or defeat the smaller stack that was aready in the province though, because if the large lith stack arrives before the already present stack is defeated I will still suffer from the -1 penalty and against their now combined armies!



Ehm what? Just a 1 shock general? Where did my previous general go then>? He died already or what?

Damn!

At least there are now 2k less Lith soldiers.



I peace out with the Poles asap, I know that Zaph is already defeat or so close to defeat that it makes no difference, meaning that I will be seeing some Muscovians soon. And Lublin is a very very nice province to have!



The first Muscovian stacks are incoming. We meet in Lithuania and duke it out. I just want to take this opportunity to emphasize the relative strenght of Muscovy and even worse Russia. They won't collapse! They won't shatter! They laught at WE and rebels, even more so then France. Do not ever let them have it their way and form Russia! I once made the mistake in a test game to give away some Novgo land (my ally) as an easy way out, but having to fight Russia somewhat later on because they annexed Novg was not fun! Russia is the improved France, especially since it's so large. It takes ages to go from a to b and let's not forget the attrition winters, that hurst like hell and is almost unavoidable.



So sieging with relatively large stacks it is then. There is no point in trying to actually storm any city yet, latin inf sucks morale wise ^^ Not just morale wise though, they just plain suck.



Sure let's cement our relationship!

Should have done this myself, but to be honest Austria is rather insignificant. They are still exactly the same size as they were in 1399. Talk about a lack of ambition. My Hungarian buddies have outperformed them!



If you all hoped for a flawless victory then I'm sorry to dissappoint you. But I can't deal with their numbers and Lith at the same time. I just can't. Buying them out is the best thing to do.



Now my work is cut out for me: advance my minions advance! We can see the pretty big Muscovian stacks moving out as well as the laid out path for my own soldiers.



Good news

Also take note of the fact that the Province of Zaphoria is nice and rebellish at this time ^^




More good news



Even more good news. Since the Lith army is seemingly paralised I just keep on moving. They still have over 18k worth of troops!

But since I have a 10k stacks standing in Volhynia they will not move their main stack anywhere!



As you can see, just 1 (!) WE for me and a nice 11 for Lith. Their long term prospects are not that good ^^



The first added core! Good news, very good news! I now have the grand total of 3 cores!




They would not accept my peace offer of 25 ducats? Cool! Take that stab hit then stubborn Lithuanians!



Expected



And another stab hit, stubborn fools!



They finally decide to move in: My army in Polesia is attacked first, I decided that this will be their end even if it will cost me some WE, so I move in all my present forces.



The initial fight was on because of my superior numbers. I took the army with with the best morale and most complete units and started the pursuit, resulting in their utter destruction.

And once my BB cooled down I asked them for three provinces




To end it all :

[Enewald]

Dran nach Osten?

Evil comagoosieburgians crusade everyone.

[PrawnStar]

Nice work, Lith should be in real trouble, shame about Danzig.

I'm hoping that you'll prove to Comagoosie that Meck isn't a minor

[unddu]

And just because I have another 1k screenshots, another update!



My research.



My bb



And the inevitable follow up strike. I mean they keep involving themselves with muslim nations, do they want to perish?



Hungary can have their capitol. The problem however that will arise now is that my poor empire will be way too stretched out. I will be facing a gazzilion enemies at once, consiting of people from two continents! But hey I wanted a challenge and we cant all be like the Hungarian round empires!



The result, they were too weak to resist me at all.



My income , nice and undistinguishable




A better diplo king! Means more war!



Minting and going for tech 9 I need those workshops asap.



The Ottomans showing the Mameluks whos boss.



And me deciding that my empire needs to reach into Africa as well, since I want more enemies! beat them while they are bussy in Mamelukia ^^



Going for the Ottomans means friends with Austria?



Look at those Hungarians rushing to their demise! Go go! I'll just siege some provinces up north



Inflation I need workshops what can I say?



I win a siege, still avoiding conflict with teh Ottomans.


Im force to keep a 10 stack in Bursa though, else the Ottomans might barge into my own territory!





This is the battle field slightly later, the ottomans pretty much killed of the Hungarian army, forcing me to actively use my 10k cav stack and keep the other one close by. They are stacking up WE because of the captured province and lost battles though.



Peace and rebels for the Mameluks, the usual.



I lose a battle I pull out asap. That were all my armies though, save for the 10k cav on rebel supressing duty.



I quickly run them all back to home, and get a peace offer. That's 8k of the table!



Only my cav is now playing with the Ottomans, all my other armies will have to recuperate first.



My allies decide they had enough and pull out. Mmmm that was not what was supposed to happen. Damn AI.


Now Ill have to all the work, I pull my armies towards the Balkans.



I won a defensive battle and got prod 9! Good news all around


After the defensive battle I followed up and my cav army arrived in Bursa weeks before their army did the same, with this result.



Some cores to top it all off.



And another 10k off the table, things are looking up!

[unddu]

Dran nach Osten?

Evil comagoosieburgians crusade everyone.

If I am to go for a WC I need to go East anyways, can just as well do it now

Nice work, Lith should be in real trouble, shame about Danzig.

I'm hoping that you'll prove to Comagoosie that Meck isn't a minor

Yeah this will delay the whole Prussia thingie ^^

[Didaa]

You are already a giant!! Keep this rythim and you will WC really fast

[unddu]

You are already a giant!! Keep this rythim and you will WC really fast

I hope i will make my target of 1771 for all cores ^^

[Enewald]

Beating ottos after 1450s is easy as europeans have reached them in tech...

But still fun!

[Tjena Med Laxen]

If you need to go west, then bohemia sure looked tasty with all those, relatively easy - to - get provinces, by the by, could you explain the five days, retreat tactic?