Venice against the Ottomans

[Duke of Wellington]

Cautious seems a wise choice. The extra manpower from staying a step towards quantity and the avoided reduction in trading efficiency from the step towards land should be useful.

[coz1]

Lot's happening there, Storey. Looks like Henry V won the HYW and took the fight directly to the Dauphine, who lost. Burgundy may be helpful to you there should it be an issue. Your more worrisome area is certainly Greece and the Turk. Lot's going on at all sides, it seems.

Smart with the choice - you are already heavily naval as it is. Get some help with the trade and infra. (especially.) I hope you get those comp issues figured out, man.

[Enewald]

That +1 land and quality sounded better to me.
Well, Venice must remain a amiable trading power.

[Formula51]

Yup...the relations increase is handy to keep hungary off your back (or to get them as an ally )

[bluelotus]

Don't forget to build a navy to counter any Turkish fleets.

[aldriq]

Really messy going-ons between England, France and Burgundy... I agree with your choice of cautious policy, keeping your back secure is vital before going crazy on the Ottomans.

[Storey]

Duke of Wellington: Caution is my middle name. I plan on trying to stay on the quantity side of the ledger if I can.

Coz1: I couldn’t keep up with all the changes between France, England and Burgundy. I’d blink my eyes and someone would becomes a vassal or declare a war. At least early on I’m relying of my trade income to help pay the bills. I have auto send on for the merchants and I’m not paying any attention to where they get sent. Good old EU II trade mess. It's one of the things EU III got right.

Enewald: Oh I agree and if I was making choices on a purely ‘game play’ basis I would have selected +land and quality. But I’m trying to play more of a ‘ keep the general feel’ (notice I didn’t say historical) of Venice at the time as in trading, naval. This desire on not picking on the obvious choices of going land, offensive, quality will make it hard to win land battles so I better have a devious back up plan. Ah come back later and maybe I’ll have on by then.

Formula51: I would love to have Hungary as an ally but a problem has popped up that complicates that simple desire. See below.

Bluelotus: Luckily I start with a good size fleet but I haven’t seen the Turkish fleet yet so I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. I suppose I could look in the ledger and it might tell me but I’ll pass on that. Makes it too easy.

To all: Started up the game last night to try and figure out what was causing my various problems. Didn’t save anything since it wasn’t a serious try. Found I ‘HAVE’ to play on 16 bit color for the sprites to look right, no problem with that. Found out why I can’t ask anyone into my alliance. I made the mistake of thinking that once Savoy was eliminated from my alliance I would be the leader, not a single province pipsqueak like Tuscany but nooo I was wrong! Maybe I should look a little closer at things next time. The problem with that is I’m locked into an alliance that I’m not the leader of for a minimum of ten years and if I declare war on anyone it will reset the clock for another ten years. Sigh. I'm not by my home computer right now but I don't remember seeing an option that let me bail out of the alliance. Of course that could just be my usual 'I can't see the obvious' problem. Well I’ll boot up the game tonight and have a real go and see what happens.

Joe

[bluelotus]

If every parties are at peace you should have an option called 'Leave Alliance'.

[TheExecuter]

...just bail on Tuscany when they get into a war...

TheExecuter

[bluelotus]

Or, if you don't want to lose stab Storey, you could insult Tuscany repeatedly till you have very bad relations and then start a war. They will most likely dishonour the call.

[Storey]

Okay so what’s going on with my alliance problem? As you can see when I hover over
Tuscany it says we do not have a military alliance with Tuscany when as you can see
they are allied with us. I think what it’s trying to say is that since I’m not playing Tuscany
I obviously can’t have them leave the alliance. At least that’s the closest I can get to
making sense of it. I also found out why I can’t drop kick Tuscany out of my alliance. It
seems I need a CB in order to do it. That’s different from EU II.

Anyway the alliance will run out in 1433 and I’m just going to wait for it to happen. I’m
not in a rush at this point since my plans (mysterious as they are) require transports and
I have to be naval 4 to build them. So it’s going to be awhile before I can put my plan
into action. However the odds of things staying the same for that length of time are
slim so my plans will undoubtably change.




In 1425 I get the Carmagnola event and select to gain the service of Montefeltro and
the +200 Naval investment. Yea I know you’re drooling looking at that +1 land and
+1 quality pick. But I know better...maybe...I think.






Meanwhile Austria who I was keeping in mind for a possible alliance in 1426 was made
a vassal of Romanist Bohemia!


I select the taxes choice and before I can load my men to put down the revolt in Ionia
the rebels disappear!





Land tech 2 is reached in 1428 so now I can build level two forts. The good news is all
my provinces have level two forts except for Ionia. The bad news is they cost 221 ducats.
I have to wait until 1429 to start construction.



Full steam ahead for naval.




In May 1428 I get the pepper event. I decide to pay up and get the trade investment +700.
The inflation doesn’t hurt especially when I get a -2 deflation event a year later. My
inflation is below 2%.






In 1429 I get to move a slider and move toward Innovative.





In February 1429 the Ottomans annex Gahzi. Followed by Candar in July 1430. The Ottomans
are steadily expanding aren’t they. Not to worry.

In August 1430 Hungary, joined by it’s ally Bosnia goes to war against the Ottomans, which
might not be the best idea because they are already at war with the Hussites.

England loses big time to France and it’s ally Brittany. England lose 5 provinces.
Hmm, Ile de France went to Brittany.



I lose my CB against the Ottomans. Somehow I’m not worried about getting another one.



1432 and Lithuania becomes a vassal to Poland.


The Peasants decided they weren’t happy. I went with the side with the peasants.




In January 1433 Sweden goes to war with a S**t load of countries. I didn’t look at
who was involved because 10 windows popped up on who was doing what with whom
and I didn’t have the energy to read them all. And to top it off in July of the same year
Sweden grabs the Defender of the faith title. I’d forgotten all about it but since it
costs 1000 ducats I couldn’t afford it even if I wanted it.


Lets take a look at how Hungary is doing in it’s war against the Ottomans and the Hussites.
Oh my. They still have a couple of armies but they aren’t doing too well.




On September 30 1433 Mantua canceled it’s vassalization with Venice. Fine with me. They’re
already in another alliance so other than a few spare coins coming me way I won’t miss them.

Lord be praised on October 2nd my alliance with Tuscany ends. It’s time to get to work.

[Duke of Wellington]

Well an active time around Europe even if you kept quiet. Although that tooltip was wrong the rest of what went on with the alliance is normal and the same as EUII. You are alliance leader, so cannot leave, and you have never been able to kick out an alliance member unless you had a CB. I look forward to the action now that the alliance has crumbled.

[stnylan]

Indeed, time to roll up the sleeves and get to work, as it were.

[Qorten]

What are you intending to do ow? Dabbling in Italy or expanding at sea?

[Formula51]

What are you intending to do ow? Dabbling in Italy or expanding at sea?

Basically it comes down to hitting the ottomans or hitting the italian minors...I'm interested to see who you go after first

[Davisx3m]

Take down ITALY!

[coz1]

Well, you stayed busy during peace time. Waited it out well. I am jealous of your inflation.

[Enewald]

Fight back the Ottomans!
Don't let them have Thessaloniki!

[aldriq]

Your game is turning out rather promiscuous for vassal-liege relations, it seems you just need to blink and some vassal has changed hands

[Storey]

Well an active time around Europe even if you kept quiet. Although that tooltip was wrong the rest of what went on with the alliance is normal and the same as EUII. You are alliance leader, so cannot leave, and you have never been able to kick out an alliance member unless you had a CB. I look forward to the action now that the alliance has crumbled.

Yes everything was functioning correctly. I've had some success since the alliance crumbled but as you'll see I should never take anything in this game for granted.

Indeed, time to roll up the sleeves and get to work, as it were.

Indeed no rest for the wicked.

What are you intending to do ow? Dabbling in Italy or expanding at sea?

With my limitation in transports I’m forced to look toward my dear and close friends in Italy to sate my hunger for land. Too bad for them.

Basically it comes down to hitting the ottomans or hitting the italian minors...I'm interested to see who you go after first

The Ottomans have a reprieve for the moment.

Take down ITALY

It’s for their own good.

Well, you stayed busy during peace time. Waited it out well. I am jealous of your inflation.

I think I can safely say we have taken a completely different approach in our games. You walk the tightrope without a net while I not only have a net but also wear a safety harness.

=Enewald] Fight back the Ottomans!
Don't let them have Thessaloniki!

I admit a moment of depression about Thessaloniki. Fortunately it passed since I know I WILL GET IT BACK.

Your game is turning out rather promiscuous for vassal-liege relations, it seems you just need to blink and some vassal has changed hands.

You don’t know the half of it. There is a constant changing of who a vassal to whom and I can’t keep up with all of it. I have pop-ups for when it happens and I think I might have to change that to the log just to calm things down.