WC with Malacca in IN 3.1 – Complete Insanity???

[Rastar]

Where’s the love for Malacca? The AAR library is sadly lacking any entries for this gorgeous country. It has beaches, it has a COT, it has nifty archer cavalry, it is a really long ways away from the big blue blob of doom…what’s not to like? Oh, don’t worry about that Chinese tech group thing. And surely the orange blob of death known as Ming is not that bad...



So anyway, I have done the WC on easy-as-possible mode (France in IN 3.0) and am looking for a suitably death-defying challenge. Was planning to try Malacca in 3.0 and then Johan released the patch, so 3.1 it is. I actually got through about 80 years with Malacca in 3.0 before I restarted with the patch, so have some idea of early game dynamics for this country.


To answer the question in the title of this post, YES I think it just might be possible to pull off a WC with Malacca, and YES I am crazy enough or at the very least masochistic enough to try this. Watch me soar to victory or get crushed by endless hordes of Chinese armies…either is possible.


House Rules: playing IN version 3.1, normal difficulty, all settings at default, no mods, 1399 start date, 1821 end date, no diplo-annexes, no inheriting territory by me, ironman (no save/reload to avoid bad random events). The chosen type of WC is that no other country exists. I will not be trying to colonize every province, and I have no hope of being able to convert everyone so will not even try.


For those that come along on the ride, this AAR will be heavy on gameplay and strategy. As is probably obvious by now, you won’t see any historic RP or brilliantly written story lines in this AAR. I am amazed at the quality of some of the writing in these AARs, but that is not me. Math, finding weaknesses in the AI, and analysis of game mechanics…now that is more my speed. Since this is my first game in 3.1, there will also be various random comments about differences between 3.0 and 3.1. Warning: There might be random attempts at comedy along the way. Although a few may actually be funny, there will be others that will be pathetic, and still others that will be hopelessly pathetic.


So….anyone else think this is possible? Or should I restart my medication and forget about fairy tales?



Edit -- This is my first AAR, so will be playing around with how to set up the graphics. They will probably start off rather weak, and if we are lucky might improve slightly by the end...

[Brandenburg III]

I can't imagine a WC with Malacca being too easy but I'll enjoy watching the attempt. As for restarting your medication, failure can be just as exciting as success.

[Rastar]

Brandenburg III: Welcome aboard. Sometimes it is fun to take 3 days worth of pills all at once...pretty colors.


For everyone else - to help you decide whether reading this AAR is worth any time whatsoever, we present a few screenies and a semi-coherent overview of the beginning position.



So, here is the starting situation for Malacca. First the good news…
 Fairly isolated so you can control the number of battle fronts
 Owns a COT
 Have 4 merchants already placed, and can place up to 11 more in COTs with decent incomes.
 Starting slider positions are pretty good
 Decent number of same religion / same culture provinces nearby to take over
 Not directly bordering any of the regional powers



…and now the bad news
 Chinese tech group (yes folks that means we need 3 rounds of westernization to eventually compete in Europe)
 Big aggressive neighbors not far away (Ming and Vija)
 Sunni religion. This causes big problems down the road when you run into a bunch of same-religion countries that are hard to attack without lots of stab hits. It also means 0 colonists per year.
 Start with 4 provinces, only 1 of which has a fort
 Starting army is 1 regiment of infantry, and only enough starting manpower to add 1 more
 Starting navy is much weaker than all nearby island neighbors (Brunei, Maja, Maka, and Aceh)
 Economy stinks. The capital province is good, while the other 3 have low tax bases.
 The starting leader has bad stats.
 Few wealthy provinces nearby. Looking for provinces with decent base tax (meaning 5 or better), Champa has 2, Khmer has 2, Dai Vet has 2, Ayut has a beauty as their capital, and Brunei/Maja/Maka/Pegu each have one. Mixed in among those decent provinces is a bunch of really poor land. After the initial expansion phase, you have to go after Japan or Ming to get good provinces. India to the west is TI so off the table until get QFTNW.

[Enewald]

Shall be possible.
It is possible with eveyr country.

[Vladislav]

I would go for the National Bank idea first so you can mint money to send out more merchants. Then rush trade tech 7 so you can switch to QFTNW and get an explorer to find new COTs.

[Soulitaire]

I would go for the National Bank idea first so you can mint money to send out more merchants. Then rush trade tech 7 so you can switch to QFTNW and get an explorer to find new COTs.

I guess that's a good starting idea... and there should be a few islands visible for colonization already? Guess it's all about income right now.

[Alfred Packer]

This looks like a fun idea...I'll be (mostly) Lurking!

[Demon1]

As is probably obvious by now, you won’t see any historic RP or brilliantly written story lines in this AAR.

WOOT

[PrawnStar]

Just dropping by to say hi after seeing this in your sig - I responded to your last post.

I'll be interested to see how you approach this - I'd be tempted to trade a lot while slider moving for more colonists and exploring - there are some nice Pagan provinces in East Africa and the real power play would be the Americas!

I tend to the view that World Conquest is possible with any country, but some are harder than others. For inspiration I'd always suggest the EU2 library, specifically ws2_32's Xhosa (Pagan African OPM) WC AAR - of course that can make depression set in

[Didaa]

I'll be seeing it

[Rastar]

Feedback

Enewald: Welcome aboard. I have crashed and burned trying WCs with a variety of countries...so still working towards the belief that it is possible with anyone. With Malacca, I would not have tried in vanilla where Westernization is a random event, but in NI it seems like it might be possible.

Vladislav: Definitely agree on National Mint as the first idea. Unfortunately that will take quite a while. At my current income level, it takes 35 years of full investment to get the one level of Government Tech that will unlock my first NI. Oh yes, the fun of being in Chinese Tech group. On your second comment, yes would love to get QFTNW as soon as possible.

Soulitaire: Yes I can see 3 islands, Sulu, Taiwan, and Irian. However, I don’t have any colonists and only gain them at 0.10 per year. This is actually better than it was in 3.0, where I got 0.0 colonists per year. You are completey right that income is a huge problem.

Alfred Packer: Thanks! Love your Crovan AAR, although haven’t played CK before. The insane leaders is a great concept.

Demon1:

Prawnstar: Your AAR was a major inspiration for this. As mentioned earlier to Enewald, I’m not so sure on WC being possible with any country in the current version. Taking 50 years to get a core is a major problem on the income side, and on the cost side you need a lot more armies for rebel control. I have yet to try a tribal government country, so that is a likely follow-on if this is successful.

Didaa: Welcome as well!

[Rastar]

Update

Hmmm…where shall the fun begin? The most obvious starting possibilities are…
A) Attack Aceh over the land bridge
B) Attack Ayut to the north for the 2 same-religion provinces they own
C) Build forts
D) Build boats to attack Brunei/Maka/Maja
E) Do nothing and save money for a while, and
F) Do something completely different.

Which starting strategy do you think would work best?


Before saying what I chose in 3.1, I will say that in 3.0 I chose F) something completely different. I went with a little strategy called Mafia Shakedown. There are lots of tiny countries just north of me, they have small armies, and each of them (in 3.0) has a few coins in their pockets. If I shake down enough of them, I get a nice pile of cash. In 3.0 I ended up with around 300 ducats, which was enough to buy a lot of armies and ships to invade my island neighbors.

In 3.1 that simply does not work as an initial strategy, since you can no longer get a minimum of 50 ducats in every peace deal. In this corner of the world, none of them have any money at the start of the game.


So anyway, in 3.1 I groan and wince and grind my teeth and choose E). Why the drama over the choice? Because as a war-monger type, I need lots of death and destruction. In addition, every month that goes by where I am not burning off any BB is like Chinese water torture.

Why choose this option? It’s all about the Benjamins. Right now I have no cash in the bank and no income. I could possibly take out either Ayut or Aceh, but it really wouldn’t help my cash situation. In fact, it would make my situation worse by adding poor provinces with high RR and without forts.

For a while, every dime I have will go towards increasing income. Money will be spent on merchants and advisors, that’s it. Army/navy maintenance will be turned down to minimum, and we will work on alliances and good relations to try to avoid early DOWs on us by nasty neighbors.

[Rastar]

More Update

10/1399 Opening actions. Off go 3 merchants, 1 to Malacca and 2 to Jiangsu. That takes over ¼ of my cash.

For diplomacy, I ask for military access from Brunei and that’s it. Next up is to change preferred unit types to something I actually prefer.

I don’t hire any advisors because…well because there are 0 available to me and even if there were some I couldn’t afford them.

In that same month Brunei guarantees me, Aceh insults me, and I get a mission to take Kelantan. I’m not so excited about the insult, but the mission is pretty good. I was planning to attack Ayutthaya anyway at some point, and this mission gives a core plus -2 reputation.



1/1400 Time to hold my breath and a slider towards aristocracy. I waited till after the end of the year to move the slider so that wouldn’t lose revenue if got a stab hit or rebels. Sure enough, I get a stab hit. The reason for moving this slider is that I need cheap cavalry cost and upkeep a lot more than centralization.

So far I am 3 for 4 on merchant placements, so about average.

Also, Aceh decides to guarantee me. Guess they weren’t happy with the results of the insult.



6/1400 I build a cavalry, and Aceh feels to need to insult me again. Yeah, I heard them the first time. Insults are flying all over Southeast Asia, including one from Ayutthaya to Sukhothai. Should be wars breaking out soon.



10/1400 All the leftover advisors flood the market. I pick up 2 masters of the mint, one 4-star and one 1-star. This may or may not be a bright move, depending on how things work out. At the moment, maintenance on these guys is about equal to the amount I can mint. This means I only gain money when my income goes up. What is worse, the cost of hiring them leaves my treasury with 0.8 ducats. Could be a big problem if I get invaded soon and need to raise armies. I’m counting on the guys who guaranteed me (Brunei and Aceh) to scare off potential invaders, and if they do invade then they can ride to my rescue.



1/1401 Random event giving a 4-star master of the mint along with –2 stab hit. This must be one of the new events they added. I would normally love this event early in the game, but at the moment cash is very thin to hire the guy…and income will get even worse with the stab hits. It is like the game is doing everything possible to keep me from being able to go to war.



9/1403 Gearing up for war. Working on a 5th regiment of troops. Planning to invade in December so can get the war tax bonus on the census tax. The last couple years I have been building up finances and troops. At only 92 troop reinforcements a month, this is a really slow process. Have 5 merchants placed in all 3 COTs that I can see.




So, who should first feel the wrath of the Mighty Malaccan Monsters?

[Demon1]

I suggest Aythayttha (cant spell it right)

[Enewald]

Yep, go north asap, because otherwise Ming or some indian giant eats all of them.

[rasmus40]

This will be fun to follow. I would suggest fulfilling your mission first, although this does depend on the alliances of the current owner and how rich that province actually is. You could really use the extra census gained by owning an extra core core province.

[z2ei]

Go Ming! Er..go Malacca!

(Too used to being on the other end of this.)

I'd suggest on picking on one of the one or two province minors before taking on one of the "larger" four or so province nations in SE Asia, but that's me.

[Vladislav]

Most of those countries don't really have forts, so if you plan your strategy right you can put them down fairly quickly.

[Vann the Red]

Found you through PrawnStar's AAR and I am certainly in for the ride.

Vann

[aldriq]

I'd say go for your mission, Kelatan, after all your southern neighbours are the ones guaranteeing you.