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I was thinking last night that Victoglory's antonym, defeatoshame, just doesn't have the same ring...
 
Greatest AAR ever!
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@Sgt Optimus: Wow, some praise! Thank you, although I really believe there a much better ones out there.

Anyway...
Part XIII - Emperor and Maharadja (1553-1561)

Now we have adopted the Quest for the New World, we won't make it a secret were our ambitions lie! We long to spread our realm eastwards, towards paradise, eternal awesomeness and cities of gold!

We expect to meet friends and foes on the way. Mostly foes though. But Orissa is an exception.

You see, the chief of this petty kingdom has decided to allow our fleet to regroup and resupply in his port. He does not know what consequences this will have! We do.

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We explore the unknown seas, but feel safe knowing that thousands of miles in the unknown, there is a safe haven where we can refresh ourselves. We even know how to find it over the unmapped seas, around uncharted coasts. Nice, eh?

On a side note, here's our current core situation. Circles indicate our valuable Indian Ocean ports, and vassals and allies are indicated with letters.

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In 1554 we are allowed to reshape our policies a bit, and by becoming a bit more innovative we fulfill the requirements for Westernization! Unfortunately, we are still under the reign of the Idiot King, Skantarios II (ADM: 3...) so we'll have to wait a while. We lose some prestige but it doesn't matter.

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The exploration of the Indian coastline is coming along just fine. Also, we reach the first in a group of crucial land techs, with considerable boosts to morale. This will greatly increase our military advantage against the indian and chinese nations.

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Then, totally unexpected, all of East Asia suddenly becomes explored. Wtf?
I still don't know why this happened, I thought this usually happened much later than the mid 16th century. Is it because I'm Eastern? Because I have muslim vassals? Because some muslim nation westernized? Who knows! Either way this makes expansion in this direction a lot easier

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Our Paradise fleet is still rather small because big ships take like 2 years to build in Sinai and Basra, and we haven't discovered a route around Africa. Therefore we decide to pick the Indian target with the smallest fleet.

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Come on, they even call themselves "Assam"! This crude corruption of Awesome is an affront to our senses. We have to teach them a lesson!

They have one rebelling seaside province separate from the rest of their land. It appears they cannot reach it. Perfect. They are allied with two landlocked nations we don't expect to see, plus distant Korea. I misjudged their eagerness to send help though, as you will soon see.

Their navy is eliminated immediately. We even capture their Carrack, but it sinks before we can get it to safety.

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And then..! Skantarios the Fool got lost some day on his daily walk, and nobody went looking for him. It's another victoglorious day for the Empire as a really awesome leader ascends the throne. Hail David II!

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ADM 8 will allow us to westernize, extra reason for celebration!

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YAY!

This s the first time I ever Westernize any nation in this game so it really feels pretty awesome.

Just don't expect us to learn the vernaculars of the west now. They'll just have to adapt and learn Greek.

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Then there's a problem in Majerthing, eh, Somalia. Unexpectedly and unseen, while we were happily sieging the not-so-awesomes, vile Koreans sneak up to our colony and steal our Some Aliens!

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As you can imagine, it simply left us flabbergasting for weeks!

But we recover and take it back, of course. The Easternmost point of Africa is in this province, by the way. It's a neat little peninsula with a town called Hafun, or, in Somali, Xaafuun. Say it a couple of times. Xaafuun Xaafuun Xaafuun Xaafuun Xaafuun Xaafuun.

Cool, huh?

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The Assamese succumb to our superior awesomeness.

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It's Chittagong!

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Now we can found an Indian Trading Company! Yes please. It's good! It gives multiple useful bonuses. I'll probably forget to use the free shipyard though.

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Spaniards in Mutapa! Soon after this, they annex them. This is rather early... I hope they stay there and leave the Indies alone for a while.

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Look at the awesome effect of westernization.. Neighbour bonus used to be something like +4!

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Still there's a lot of catching up to do.

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We discover the Cape of Good Hope, coming from the east side! Charming!

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Then what was next? Ah, yeah. In between all the warring and stealing of aliens, we still manage to regain some stability (-5 for Westernizing).

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Next target please! As I vowed a century ago, the Maldives are a top priority.
The fact that southern India is currently caught in a Big War only makes the choice even more logical. We are going to declare war on Mysore, who own the Maldives and are in big trouble. So are their landlocked allies.

Remember, pick your battles. That phrase might actually describe this game pretty well, compared to other strategy games.

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The Trebizond Marine Corps rushes in....

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And the Jayalarids decide to send a regiment too! Just for laughs, I guess.

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Other news, 1561. Some aliens become self-sufficient.

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Then the scary Timurids release their boundless aggression upon some Indians, and they call on us for help. Since they are now no longer shrouded in TI, we think we should be able to fight them better this time, and we accept.

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The other war is quickly brought to an end because I prefer concentrating on as few fronts as possible. We gain two useful provinces nevertheless! Victoglory over Maldives! In the Maldive capital a big statue is built in honor of Martman.

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The Mahasomethings destroy the Timurid fleet. We thank them kindly and swiftly take the opportunity to blockade the buggers.

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As if we hadn't enough on our minds, another war starts on the other side of our empire. With most of Asia involved in one of these wars, the risk of overstretching is lurking..

New war on the western front. Note how the Poles are being beaten badly by the Russians.
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The central theater with the huge Timurid empire.
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And finally the indian theater.
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So, to recap, we explored, got a cool new king, we westernized, took several provinces in India, then got ourselves into trouble.

It soon proves to be a tough fight. Will we once again arise victoglorious? Will Trebizond fulfill it's dreams or bite the dust? Check back soon! :p
 
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Looks like Russia's gonna be your neighbor soon :(
Will it cast a cloud over victogloriness?

I think Russia has their own problems and after all these two countries have a same religion.

Edited: Also subscribed.
 
Timurids shall perish!!!
Excellent game play!
Hmm, if you sail around the Cape of God Hope coming from east, means that you are the first european to discover europe? :p
 
Eagerly awaiting the next update!
Onwards!
For Victoglorious Trebizond!
 
I think it's just terrific how victoglory is catching on with my audience :D

Soarom: I've shared a border with Novgorod/Russia for some decades now in the Crimea/Ukraine area. Seems they still love me. Eventually I want some of their land though. At the end of the next update I'll include a map of my long-term ambitions!

Enewald: Yeah, that must be it! Soon they'll all want to have a border with me so they can Easternize ;)

Vesimir: Hmm. I'll think about it. But I guess Orthodoxy is an important part of our identity too. So maybe it should be a national decision (like France's "say l'êtat, c'est moi"). But I wouldn't want to mod in a pure cheat option with just bonuses. So what would be the downside of victoglory? :eek:o Something to do with reputation? More expensive soldiers?
Overall, I think I prefer to keep my AAR game vanilla.
 
Part XIV - The Great Timurid War and then some (1561-1568)

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Our cavalry spread out over the hills and mountains of the Iranian plateau in 4-5k groups. Some extras run around to assist in various battles. This tactic seems to work well now I can see their armies coming (I couldn't when I was sieging provinces bordering Terra Incognita).
Note that we've already made some progress in the isolated Timurid provinces in the North. That's our infantry assault squad being glorious and stuff!

Doing some research on the geography of Iran, I discover that the Persian provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran are wet and covered with dense forests much like in Trebizond proper.

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Iran: not the wasteland you thought it was.

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Soon we are back at +2 stability and we decide to switch to Land Tech for now. Like I said before, this tech gives +0.25 morale, and considering the fact that the Timurids are at land tech 16 too, getting this could really tip the balance.

Then in November 1562, Syria revolts from the Mamluks. Maybe I can cause the rest of the Mamluks remaining Arabian provinces to defect to them? Would make it easier to vassalize both nations.

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The dancing around is really intense. It's hard to convey this in pictures, but it's one of the more challenging wars I ever fought in this game and I have to use all my tactical skill.
They outnumber us 2:1 and the terrain is totally terrible to fight in. As bad as Scandinavia or Siberia, but with a more fearsome foe. I'm more used to the tiny provinces in Europe, where getting from one province to the next takes a week, not six..

But generally we do well in this phase of the war, because we take little attrition and our losses are consistently much lower than theirs.

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Another medium sized division defeated. Sometimes we chase and destroy, sometimes we let them retreat to drain still more of their manpower.

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Then one of their major armies shows up. 24k is pretty huge in this time and place, so this is serious. We gather all we can, retreat to an area we control, get our best general there (shock 4) and order a reserve regiment all the way from Bulgaria to come over as soon as they can. Then we wait for them to attack, so we get the defender's bonus.

It culminates in the Battle of Fars, August 1563.
Bad dice rolls to start with reduce our cavalry advantage...

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And after bitter fighting for over a month, it ends in a heroic defeat. Hmmyeah. Nasty. Turning point.

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We retreat to regroup and reinforce and inevitably we lose control of some of the provinces we won.

Meanwhile, the Indians have surrendered a couple of their provinces to gain peace, so still more heathen armies will now head in our direction.

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The next encounter with the Timurid hordes is on our soil, in Azerbaijan. We have prepared the largest army we have ever fielded specially for this battle.

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This time, 4 months after our defeat at Fars, we take revenge!

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And again!

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That just annihilated more than 40 regiments! Victoglory has not left us!

Meanwhile in the west, the city of Pecs has fallen to a tiny detachment tasked with the submission of the Hungarian nation. They had three provinces, and one has been taken quickly after the start of the war by the Aquileians.

They should bother us no more as they are forced into submisery.

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This was the hardest part of the war and we restart sieging Iran.

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But their "zero" war capacity is misleading, as they keep sending 10-20k armies in our direction. We chain a string of glorious victories, but sieges keep getting disrupted a lot.

We spend about a year and a half sieging, fighting, generally progressing well. The Timurids are at their maximum War Exhaustion and rebels are finally starting to take over.

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Now the Timurids are offering White Peace. No way!

Then when we think they are really down and all our divisions are spread out sieging as much as we can, a final 20k stack shows up - it's all the cavalry they have left and a bunch of infantry on top of that!
I apparently misjudged the situation; I thought their remaining forces would be spread out to deal with the rebels.

They are not too big to handle, we could defeat them. But we can't recombine in time so we fear some of our small siege squads and provinces will be lost. Therefore, it appears to be the opportune moment to sign peace. It was getting rather long anyway and we want to continue our colonisation attempts.

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It's a decisive showing of victoglory!
And a 63% peace deal is pretty good. We probably would have had to continue fighting for years to get it up to 100%, which would only make a difference of one or two provinces.

Anyway, a month of celebrations, free beer and cherries is declared all across the Empire.

And behold! For the second time in history, Trebizond becomes the richest nation on Earth. This time we intend to hold on to that status.

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In the year 1567 AD, we continue our explorations of the East.

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First we wipe out some natives on the Andamans. It is just within reach of Basra so we send a colonist there.

Then it's time for some genuine conquistadoring on Java!

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Easy victory.

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That's it for today!

Summary:
- Big big war against the Timurids, eventually winning 6 provinces.
- Vassalized Hungary
- Colonial exploits on the Andamans and Java
- Good dose of victoglory

And last but not least, a couple of maps.

The State of the Empire:

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A map of the world and our long term ambitions (click for bigger version)



Indicated are the shape of the holy cross we intend to form on the Old World, as well as key provinces, objectives.

Blue dots indicate primary objectives, acquired (3)
Green dots are primary objectives I have yet to conquer or colonize (13)
Yellow dots are secondary objectives; would be nice to have (13 again)
Red indicates California, our promised land.

So, enough left for us to do!
 
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I would have advised taking the Timurids to 100% and sitting on them to see what defects - they have so many wrong-culture provinces that you'd almost certainly get 4+ extra provinces on top of the ridiculous peace deal.
 
Grondo: Well, the last picture in the latest update shows what I'm planning to do. That's pretty much my goal for this game and I'll consider it a success if I obtain all these objectives. But if I complete this way before 1820, I might do some more conquering of course!

I'm still a bit behind the major Europeans in tech though.
For example, Land tech, 1568:
France, Novgorod, Aquileia, Castille, Britain, Poland : 21
Trebizond : 17
Timurids : 16
Mamluks: 10
Ming : 9

Vesimir:
So do I!

Enewald:
Hmmm.. maybe, sort of! But without all the boring steppes and tundra parts :p
but I like the Tang!

naggy: Yes, good point. I'll try to do that in the next war :)

M4 Emperior: Yeah I think conflict with Aquileia is inevitable. We both want Rome. They have been declaring war on the pope every decade, but they never annex. If I take Rome I'm sure they'll hate me for it. But with France as an ally they should not pose a threat. And I'll be happy to take their rich lands and universities of course!

Going to start a play session now, wish me luck and victoglory! ;)