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Wasn't it that the lvl 5 forts with 100% defensiveness are impossible to conquer?
 
Wasn't it that the lvl 5 forts with 100% defensiveness are impossible to conquer?

I think it was lvl6, and not entirely impossible, just practically :p
 

FEEDBACK

aldriq - I do hit Burgundy hard for WE but I can't drive it up to really painful levels :(

demokratickid - Asia is soon but probably the 1780s

comagoosie - That cash drain explains why I'm short of cash (fortress building costs + I'm constantly recruiting)!

Lord Strange - Burgundy is very powerful - their provinces are generally very high tax and manpower.

naggy - I'm still ignoring artillery, I've found the higher movement speed to be very useful in the Burgundian war.

ForsakenBlack - I haven't got enough generals to fight Burgundy and the Timurids at the same time and I cam' afford the diplomats to make any new ones. There are already Conquistadors leading my armies outside of Europe - does that still matter for Conq's?

Delex - What else is there to do by 1770?

Didaa - I'm going to try and force GB to move its capital to India :rofl:

Derdiedas - It's peacekeeping not warmongering (silently thanks Rensslaer for explaining the difference ;))

EUROO7 - Too true - but I've got 2 non core COTs in the Americas so I'd mainly be showing you how to maintain a monopoly in your own COT.

Azugal - That all looks too hard for me, I just hit them with a 80k assault stack under a Shock 6 General. I've taken a Level 5 forttress in a few days that way - although morale does take a battering.

Kentti - The answer to that is definitely no

Velko - <SAURON MODE> They all fall in the end </SAURON MODE>

Fordus - If it's taking more than one assault use a bigger stack :D


 

Chapter Forty Six

Summer Smackdown! – August 1767

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This update starts with probably my biggest battle to date as I throw 87 regiments at 52 Burgundians. I have a horrible feeling I’m going to have to start assaulting with this stack to actually take any provinces before Burgundy recovers.

05/09/1767 OPM Oyo warns us. I was actually considering attacking them next as they are guaranteed by France!

The follow up battle – October 1767

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Overlord! – February 1768

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While the vast battles on the frontier continue inconclusively (I was forced to retreat in the previous campaign as constant fighting and attrition wore down my forces), the British based army strikes behind enemy lines.

I expect this move to eventually end in a retreat to the sea. However, it does allow me to kill some Burgundian ships, a scattering of isolated regiments and do some heavy WE damage.

October 1768 Castile warns us – which means I need to find another route to a new war with France.

November 1769 Aragon warns us as well.

The current plan is DOW Aragon, triggering all the warnings, Castile, Aragon and Oyo. Step two is to DOW Brittany to get France into a separate war. Of course I do really need to be at peace with Burgundy for this to work.

Burgundy – Jan 1769

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A long and bloody campaign has broken through the Burgundian frontline and started to inflict real damage. My smallest visible stack is over twenty regiments.

01/04/1769 Stability 3 is finally regained

01/05/1769 – Bad Event

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The +2 stab doesn’t matter much now but the 2 points of innovation are a real nuisance – I don’t gain many missionaries as it is and most of the standard missionary gain techniques don’t work for Shamanists.

18/05/1769 Peten converts

Peace with Burgundy – June 1769

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It was proving harder and harder to beat the Burgundians back as the territory they controlled contracted their armies became more concentrated. This is a decent peace deal, a nice chunk of the middle of France, Southern Australia and a couple more islands.

All but unbelievably, I’m not at war!

The Economy

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World Map – 01/09/1769

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Greater Iroquois Republic – 01/09/1769

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Objectives for the next decade include:

Annexation of Aragon, Mamluks and France, Castile reduced to West Africa, Great Britain beaten twice and Burgundy driven from France proper. I also want to clean up the remaining non Iroquois provinces in Indonesia / Philippines and Australasia.



Ceterum censeo Castile esse delendam​

 
Wow, those European Burgundian provinces must have been cheap, you got, what, 7 of them? How'd you finally get Bearn? By assault I am guessing? I guess my point with the artillery and siege generals is that without them, you will struggle against level 4/5+ forts. If you're happy to assault, then no problem, just thought I'd point it out is all. :)

Again, great border control though, only a very small border with them now. Cash reserves are running awfully low, so I guess no mass building of Burgundian troops in your new lands. As always, a pleasure to read your updates, and I really want to see just how much you can accomplish before the game ends. Hold all of Africa and Oceania maybe? And I wonder how much of Europe? Either way, it's been a great achievement from such humble beginnings, I still remember how worried I was when the Euros first DoWed you. :D

Keep up the good work.
 
On the issue of sieges a level 6 fort is immune without any bonuses. Once you add in defensiveness (if it works as claimed) lower level forts are immune to siege. Ultimately these powerful forts have to be taken by assault as nothing else works. I have played a few games starting with the French Revolution start date. Europe is peppered with level 5 forts and sieging them with a huge stack of artillery and good general still takes ages. The game would end before you could take them all so assaulting becomes the only way to go.
 
Wasn't it that the lvl 5 forts with 100% defensiveness are impossible to conquer?

Not impossible to conquer - just impossible to take by siege alone.

You could either take it via assault, or use Bribe Defenders to move the siege along to the point where the bonuses for siege progress give you a snowball's chance in hell.
 
The game would end before you could take them all so assaulting becomes the only way to go.

Yeah, so Magna Mundi adds more fort levels.

You need some Iroquois tech teams researching the techs for nuclear weapons...
 
Yeah, or at least put Krupps on tank research...:D
 
Get that inflation down :p

Anyways, I am a little dispointed in Burgundy's performance, but I am come to expect a lot of failures out of this AI. Or maybe it is because you have such good generals :D
 
Last two updates did show nice expansion in the Middle East and South East Asia. Although it would be nice to hear more details about those campaigns.
 

FEEDBACK

Azugal - The Burgundian provinces cost between 4 and 10 war score - I have no idea how province values are calculated for peace deals. Castile's vassalisation score of just over 500 hasn't changed much in decades!

I gain 1.6 spies a year and I'm generally using them to help sieges along. I'm also assaulting - my manpower pool is taking a hammering fighting Burgundy.

Africa and Oceania by game end are very conservative aims, I suspect that I can drive deep into Europe and Asia. I seem to remember my original game plan was simply to make it to 1820 since the general forum opinion was that that wasn't possible - even after I posted my Mayan 1820 screenies.

Enewald - Crossing the Rhine will bring me into contact with Bohemia, who are basically a Burgundy clone so I need to cripple Burgundy first - 1790 at the earliest I'd guess.

Didaa - It's a nice soothing green isn't it, very restful on the eyes (certainly a lot more restful than trying to work out what I'm doing with Burgundy).

Kanitatlan - Hello and thanks for commenting. I haven't really tried a proper siege against a Level 6 fortress as I want my wars to move fast. I've been using a lot of spies and assaulting.

On the question of defensiveness, I'm fully defensive so I get +1.25 Leader Siege bonus and I seem to recall someone (naggy?) stating that I get siege progress checks 25% faster as well. It doesn't appear to be helping so I'm drowning the defenders in bodies - it's playing hell with my killstacks' morale and my manpower pool.

naggy - Violence and bribery are the answer. I'm currently trying to research Special Techs 'Blackmail' and 'Love Bombs' ;)

onbekende - Ming have mutated into Manchu and yes the Timurids are absolutely smashing them.

ColossusCrusher - Not sure about that! Krupp were based in the Rhine weren't they (HOI people)? so that probably means the first tank I would see would be Burgundian.

comagoosie - The Inflation was due to event, it was 3 points inflation or 2 levels of stab.

Burgundy is actually a serious nightmare, they've better units than me and I'm bleeding hard for the wins.

demokratickid - Oh come on, who can resist the Mongol Empire thriving into the modern age?

aldriq - France is a real nuisance. The provinces are that valuable it takes forever to annex them and they produce huge armies of high tech troops. The Burgundian capital is Brabant and has been for a long time.

 

Chapter Forty Seven

01/09/1769

War exhaustion is 0.29 – while the Burgundian war saw heavy casualties it didn’t see all that much attrition damage due to the high troop support limits common in Western Europe.

Badboy is 403.07 / 7.00 – Which is looking a lot more respectable.

There are several National Decisions potentially possible for Iroquois but none look appealing. They either boost Innovation or do similar undesirable slider moves.

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A Fine Arts Academy in Michigan, my third Manufactory, would cost 19657.80 ducats :rofl:

War!

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I declare war on OPM Pattani to trigger the warnings, drawing in Castile, Aragon and Oyo. Castile hasn’t finished its building program but the warning would cause me to waste a couple of years if I waited for the buildings to finish. At least the war leader is sensible this time around.

02/12/1769 The Jalayirids warn us

War with the Mamluks – March 1770

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Iroquois declare war on the Mamluks, bringing in Yemen who guaranteed them and the Jalayirids who had warned us – there will be a decision to make on whether or not to have a border with the Timurids although I suspect that’s another round of wars away.

Peace with Aragon – March 1770

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Aragon is reduced to an OPM. With all active opposition in Iberia destroyed troops have been redeployed…

War with Brittany – April 1770

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France honours its guarantee, it doesn’t take France long to rebuild does it?

Mamluks annexed! – April 1770

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Pattani annexed – April 1770

The various wars are all proceeding without any real problems – only France fields a sizable modern army.

Peace with Brittany – November 1770

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Brittany is reduced to an OPM – France is now in a lot of trouble and should lose another three provinces within the next six months.

By New Year 1771 I have near total victory over France (only Paris resists a siege), complete occupation of Jalayirids and Yemen and over 90% war score against Castile. I’ve decide to keep Oyo alive as they seem to draw a French guarantee that might prove useful in the future. I have only one diplomat available…

Peace with France – February 1771

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Somewhat annoyingly Bali-Lombok has defected from Manchu to Mataram so Mataram is no longer an OPM. Britain has become a Republican Dictatorship – I did spot a lot of rebels after the last war but hadn’t noticed them breaking.

03/02/1771 Cumana converts

01/04/1771 Iroquois declares war on Cyprus

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Rather impressively, for someone used to 1.3, Cyprus the country actually has the same state religion / culture pair as the province.


Ceterum censeo Castile esse delendam​