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Martman

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Mar 17, 2008
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Hey, for those who haven't read this thread I've decided to do a gaming AAR about the most obsure/difficult non-pagan country in the game. There were quite a few suggestions, but Maldive caught my eye. I'll be attempting to conquer a lot of stuff, including a large chunk of Europe, but I won't be aiming for a WC. If I end up doing one it'll be a fluke, but I'm not sure even the best EU3 players, let alone myself (I've never done a WC before) could do a WC with Maldive.

Anyhoo, let's have a look at the situation shall we?

Oo-er. Maldive barely registers on the game map. We get 12 manpower a month, which means I won't be able to recruit my second unit for ages.

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I recruit some cogs. I need to be able to move troops (mercenaries probably, since I don't have the manpower for any real army) and protect against landings.

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I move my slider toward innovative, preparing for westernisation (but a distant dream!).

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For this whole section, I am pretty much full minting. It's the only way to support any army or navy I make. My inflation will get very high, but it's a necessity to expand.

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I get my first mission (which I failed when I took out my first loan later down the line) and two allies. Sind and Gujarat are the only countries willing to ally with me, so I need to hold onto them. At the very least they may deter other countries from declaring war on me...

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Okay scratch that.

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I must have forgotten to take pictures of the battle in the excitement, but Gujarat and my navy managed to defeat the Mysorean navy, and not only that, but capture a carrack!

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As a result I park my ships outside Mysore and wait for a white peace. Their army is far too large for me to take on, even if I take out a load of loans and hire some mercenaries.

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Mysore's ally (who are landlocked) asks for a white peace.

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I get a call to arms, which I accept. The countries I'm going to war with are landlocked, so they can't touch me and I keep my ally. Plus it means when I white-peace with Mysore I can carry on taking war taxes.

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White peace with Mysore!

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Now when wondering what to do next, I get this nugget of a pop-up. Travancore, a two-province minor have gone to war with a country they don't share a land connection with. This means they'll be shipping troops out of their homelands. I'll use this opportunity to win my first war and take my first province! :D

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I declare war on Travancor after they move their troops out and my allies join me, although they don't do anything of use. I have taken out four loans and hired a couple of mercenary units to help.

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Travancore try hiring some mercenaries but it's all in vain.

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During the war I get this lovely event. It'll make westernising a lot easier!

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I win a seige and the province is ceded to me. I have managed to double my country's size!

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I move my slider another towards innovative whilst spending several years minting money to pay for the loans I took out.

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I get another call to arms against a load of landlocked countries. Again I join to keep my ally and raise war taxes.

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I pick my next target. They're guaranteed by a landlocked country. Notice how in the background Vijayanagar have collapsed. In my practise runs they were the main reason for failure. Probably the reason I'm not dead this game.

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I get my overrun, and Ceylon is mine for the taking!

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I get a really annoying event. Either I get a load of rebels I could never hope to defeat, or lose 30 ducats. I go for the ducats and take out a loan to pay for it. I'm still full minting by the way, inflation is around 17%.

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I pay off my loans. I need to start weening myself off them now, since they force me to mint to pay them off. I now have the provinces to have a decent army (3 infantry, 2 cavalry) and a stable economy, especially once I have cores.

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Vijayanagar have been annexed, which funnily enough completes the mission I've had for a while. I get a new mission, and it's a good one! :D

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The DOW and easy rollover come.

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I get this great event again. Remember the stability loss is still nothing for a country as small as mine, so it's a free centralisation move!

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I annex Ceylon, completing my mission and decide now's a good time to save and rest. I'll be carrying on tomorrow, and we'll see if I can get a decent hold on the mainland, and actually start some research rather than minting!

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How are you going to get out of 17% inflation? It's 170 years of National Bank working at full capacity... Looks like a game breaker.
 
Best start I have ever seen for Maldives, and love the core on Korales! I did a couple test runs with them once and always crashed and burned. While the inflation is a problem, I totally agree with the loans as the only way to get the country off the ground.
 
Maldives!

Interesting, I've played them as a trader nation, fairly successful but pretty dull. This looks somewhat more exciting LOL
 
Thanks for the replies guys! Inflation is not necessarily that much of a problem, as long as my economy increases more quickly! Everything may cost 20% (yes it's 20% now) more expensive, but I'm pretty sure I make far more than 20% more money in income! Centralisation, national bank and tax assessors will eventually sort out inflation, but it's pretty under control now. In this update, I'm no longer needing to mint, so I doubt inflation will go much over what it is now, roughly 20%.

Anyway, things are about to get hilarious in this update, as I go from a minor to a medium power in the space of seven years! Right after I loaded up the save, I get this pop-up. Cool!

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So let's have a look at the situation. I have inflation of 19.4%, but I no longer need to mint to keep my army and economy afloat, except a tiny bit of minting to put my army on maximum maintenence, but that situation won't last long. I'm investing in trade for QftNW, not just to discover Europe, but to discover Africa and America so that I can steal all their precious ducats.

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Looking around the map, I see Madurai are in a lot of trouble, and have barely an army to talk of. Time to take advantage of this!

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In doing this DoW, I lose an ally. Gujarat have only two provinces, no real army and rebel problems, so I'm practically without allies. I'll need to keep an eye out for new allies.

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I win several battles against what remains of Madurai's army as they get ripped apart from several directions by several countries.

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I win my first seige.

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Something weird happens. My king died and I lost stability. He was leading an army doing a seige, but it wasn't fighting a battle. I shouldn't have to use my leader as a general for too much longer, but I might, look at the stats on Sayyid! Lucky 7s all round! :)

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Here you see me winning another seige and an interesting peace offer. Madurai have peaced out with Orissa, but only for ducats. This leaves two more provinces open for me to seige and take!

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I win the seiges and the provinces are ceded to me. I couldn't take Kongu sadly since Mysore had seiged it. Strangely after I peaced out they white peaced with Madurai despite having occupied half of what remained of Madurai. :confused:

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Speaking of Mysore, I noticed that they're building up troops on my border, at a rate I can't match. I think it's best to nip this one in the bud and DoW them. Orissa is currently in a war it's losing badly, and Gondawa have a small army anyway, being only three provinces large, so I should be okay with this war.

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I win some battles against Mysore.

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Some bad news. Gondawa win a seige. However they only have a few thousand men in my land. Once I've dealt with Mysore, I'll easily be able to wipe them out.

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I win the seige of Mysore's non-capital province. As a result they peace out and cede it to me!

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Gondawa have moved out of the province they occupied, and the garrison is only about 400 men, so I assault the fort and get my province back, followed by wiping out the 2000 men in my land.

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Here's the reason I didn't mind Gondawa and Orissa joining in the war. They're completely spent!

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I've attracted some attention it seems. Delhi will make a much more useful ally than Sind or Gujarat were, so I accept.

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Here you can see that I can't win a long term war against Gondawa with the army they've managed to raise. Even if I eventually wipe their army out, my WE will go up and I'll start getting rebellions. I have a decent seige going on in one of Orissa's provinces, so once I get that I'll peace out, Orissa being the leader of their alliance.

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Here I win the seige and get the peace (and the province!).

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But I'm not done yet! Travancore are vulnerable at the moment, so I DoW them. They have two provinces and half the size of my army, so this is a walkover war.

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And in 1429, here is the fledgling empire of Maldive! This is probably a good time to consolidate. Wait for peace treaties to finish and mop up the OPMs surrounding me. I'll be getting rebels soon, since I have a lot of different religion provinces and only 5 missionaries (I'm too innovation to get missionaries, and like an idiot I forgot to take the religious decision which gives me more missionaries when I was narrowminded enough to). I need to get to trade tech 7 sometime soon, to be able to explore other land!

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yay! I've suggested it to like 8 different people and at last someone listened!! hehe I'll be watching this one! :D

you got off to a great start! Go on to conquer Ming, Europe and Russia! Then colonise America!!


EDIT: wow I just saw the latest update!! That IS impressive! Either pure fluke or skill!! I think a bit of both really! If you do a WC with them I'll admit you're the greatest player I have ever seen.


Keep it up!!! :D
 
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That IS impressive! Either pure fluke or skill!! I think a bit of both really! If you do a WC with them I'll admit you're the greatest player I have ever seen.

This is what happens any time you play in India - you end up with lots of opportunities for a quick score. You either end up with half the subcontinent in 30-50 years, or you get crushed.

The political situation there really leads to this: half the states are Muslim, half are Hindu, the Muslim states are wrong-religion to their provinces, and none of the states, by themselves, are overwhelming.
 
Excellent job! I'm surprised you've managed to do such a good work with Maldives. It definitely requires a lot of skill and some luck. I'll definitely keep an eye on this. Keep it up!
 
Next update! What I haven't put in these pictures, because it's horribly boring and would take up a million pictures showing me killing a few hundred men, is the number of rebels that have popped up and me chasing them down. I swear the game hated me. The amount of events popping up taking stability from me was higher in a short amount of time than I think I've ever had before. :mad:

Anyway, things start off well, I get an event which gives me a load of cores! Three of them I can take my time getting, since they're in same culture provinces, but one isn't, and it's owned by Maharastha who have quite the army!

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I've been moving steadily toward innovative, and almost every time I've got the event which gives an advisor. However this time I got one which reduced stability. Thing is, stability takes a long time to rise now and my revolt risk is high!

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I notice that Madurai have no allies and a very small army, having just annexed Travancore. I take advantage of this and DoW.

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Delhi have some cheek. They refuse to take part in my war, and then immediately offer me another alliance! Thing is, I need them. They border Maharasthra, so if they declare war on me, I can stop Maharasthra since they'll have a two-front war to fight.

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Madurai go down easily, I take their provinces and get a new culture accepted.

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I get an event, and take the non stability-reducing one.

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My king dies killing some rebels (of which you can see more in the background) and I get a new one.

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Now I for the life of me can't remember why I picked this choice for this event. Either way I seriously miscalculated, and the loss of stability gave me no end of headaches as I chased rebels down (remember runovers are not nearly as easy as in the latin tech group, since battles last longer).

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Here I present to you the sheer number of crappy events I got. Where I could, I tried to pick the one which didn't make me lose stability, to the extent that I took two decentralisation hits! Two of the events were due to moving sliders.

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Finally, I get my first non event core!

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In the next update, I take on Maharasthra, Gondawa, Rajputana and Mysore at the same time! Will Delhi wuss out or can I rely on my ally? Find out when I can be bothered to upload the next batch of pictures! ;)
 
Wow. Great work. Show us some ledger after you're done uniting India.
 
Wow I am impressed, if you managed a WC as the Maldives... well I'm sure global warning wouldn't be as much of an issue... but that would just be like so much more amazing than any other nation, I'm sure it would put SPL's Moldavia AAR to shame.