the blue crescent : Malacca AAR

[sprites]

i'll try something new for me , and after the first that was lost , i'll try to get this to the end ^^



the initial situation :



pros :

we start with a coT in the capital
the good guys are in the south , the bad guys are in the north
i've the holy war CB and the bad guys don't ^^
we are a monarchy


cons :

SE asia is kinda poor
wonderful tech group
where are we? what awaits us in terra incognita? and where is Mecca !? a true believer must know that!



we have 4 provinces , a wonderful army composed of 1 regiment of infantry , and four ships
of all that , only the capital is somewhat fortified
malacca is on malay culture group , brunei in the east and aceh in the southwest share both culture and faith
and the two provinces on the northern border are too , but in the hands of a heathen power


version : H3T beta 27/02
custom rules : annexation of two province minors , i won't modernize from some heathen country

what you won't see : WC , exploring straight to americas/europe , etc ^^

[Marco Oliverio]

Yeah! Another AAR for the Islamic side!

I've always wanted to try Malacca - I think getting thins in order in the neighborhood and then facing the Europeans when the invariably arrive would be very challenging!

Bon chance! I'll be following.

[naggy]

Rastar's Malacca WC died, so another Malacca AAR is good to have!

I love how Muslim nations in E Asia don't know where Mecca is.

[JDMS]

Hmm, I've never considered Malacca. Interesting choice. Good luck!

[aldriq]

Good luck! The sea tiles in Asia sound so much more evocative in French

I love how Muslim nations in E Asia don't know where Mecca is.

I take they haven't fixed that in HttT...

[sprites]

/note to myself : i'll mod that when i'll finish this

chapter 1 : a new dynasty , new objectives



our ruler , the sultan Sam Agi Srivijaya , and his wonderful heir , was worried about the scarce resources of the country , tried to improve the economy by centralizing a little more the powerin Malacca denying some autonomy to the other nearby provinces.
of course , such a reform wasn't welcome , but he didn't foresee the consequences of it , as a local noble took the arms in johore , and rallied all the provinces except the capital to his cause quickly and unharmed as his army was twice as big as the royal army



He soon was recognized as the new sultan , to be known as Rahmat I.
he was a wise man , and to prevent chaos and civil war, announced his glorious project : we found , far north , some nice island whose population does not share our true faith , it's our duty to enlight them! and he lead the expedition to okinawa with his army



some peasants were not happy with these glorious dreams , but they were quickly defeated.
to be recognized by his neighbors as a great king ,and not some despot , some marriages were celebrated with brides from aceh , brunei and makassar (that's nice to be allowed 4 wives , all neighbors can be appeased) and an alliance was signed with aceh , so the two other regiments of the army was sent to help them quell some nasty revolt



to ensure a dynasty , you need an heir , and fortunately his son was more than able as good as his father on the battlefield but much better in the administration of the realm. he's also building some defenses in perak , the place he was recognized sultan , to make other pretendres job harder



they might be uncivilized barbarians , they sure know how to defend! said Rahmat when the forteress finally surrendered after more than two years of siege and several failed assaults
after that , he noticed some northern abrbarians known as 'korea' also wanted some chinaware to impress their court , and annexed the island



only a few days after this , the sultan recieved a message from the malay people in pattani , saying the evil king of ayut was persecuting them because of their faith , and were well recieved
preparations for war were immediately initiated , and a proper declaration of war soon followed the addition of a fourth infantry regiment to the regular army



the campaign against Ayut progressed quickly and due to the lack of fortifications all the country except the capital was quickly under malaccan control
a few battles occured , the two major ones are seen here , the first showk of the two armies , and the destruction of the ayut army.
they surrendered , but feeling their massive offer was a trap the great king Rahmat I only settled for the two sunni provinces , that was his casus belli and didn't want to expand too quickly into unstable hostile regions.
the enemy also had to pay 112 ducats , a fortune! for the realm's standard , but that money would be well used

using the prestige of his military victories , he declared the realm was now a khalifah and introduced the jizya tax , a heavy tax on non muslim subjects to incite them to convert
a missionary was sent to okinawa , maybe the natives would be impressed by this new prestigious ruler for them, and wanting to try some new religion?

[JDMS]

And Malacca begins its expansion quickly!
Great update, spreading the Sunni faith!

[sprites]

feedback : i'll try to have a nice country , neither too small but nor oversized


chapter 2 : the end of an old warrior

after that beginning , we accomplish some fortification missions , build some cheap galleys to oversize campa's navy , but they are still too far and powerful to be included in our glorious kingdom , even if their starting provinces are in thr right culture group

an artist who claims to have travelled as far as the ottoman empire (that's suspicious , but maybe he's right , as we don't know of any such country) taught us a more advanced handwriting style , which greatly improved our prestige and cultural tradition , at the cost of some research as some promising recruits start careers in poetry and some other disciplines and not something more useful in the sultan's eye.



in 1409 a quick war against our arch-enemy saw our armies victorious and the northern border is pushed a little , with the acquisition of the poor province of Ligore

in 1410 further centralization efforts saw two revolts in newly acquired lands , ligore and okinawa , quickly quelled.
Rahmat succeded where his predecessor failed , and quickly reorganized the army with him as the only head , but this time the centralization was starting to upset the people , or maybe they didn't like the army , as the revolt risk increased a little.

Rahmat was also quite open-minded , as he made some concessions to the people of okinawa , resulting on a greater freedom.

all that was definately not free , and our next divine task was ... to save money , that's less prestigious than bringing the faith to the heathens but still has to be done to ensure the future prosperity of the realm.

in 1414 , our priests were happy as the majority ot the inhabitants of okinawa now followed the true faith , in bonus they empbraced our culture at the same time.We also see here the #2 enemy of the kingdom , champa , expanded nicely too.



while saving money , and the task wasn't quick , the king suddenly declared our men would be more effective if they left the spears in the fields and learned to use bows properly. fortunately no revolts occured during the training of the troops to these new weapons



in 1418 our divine missions was this time to conquer the province of Ratchaburi from our arch enemies of Ayut , they are backed by champa and lang xang , and we are backed by our usual allies Aceh and makassar
we can see they recovered well from our last conflict , having twice as much provinces now than they had after the last war
this conflice was a fierce one , and we were victorious after two years of conflict , we claimed our prize , the two provinces , and some months after negociated a white peace with the leader Champa
In 1420 Rahmat I passed away and his son ascended to the throne under the name of Abu Syahid I.





that conquest made the mon people a significant minority in the realm and they are now tolerated

and a little bonus , some try to draw a map of the kingdom who look old ^^
(the 1418 map , before conquering Tenasserim and Ratchaburi)


next part will deal with some research strategy , for the moment all effort is directed in govt tech

[JDMS]

Great update, though you're slowly pushing up into Indochina.
Of course, a few more provinces there, and you'll border Ming!

[Vladislav]

I've always wondered, how is the French translation in EU3? Is it pretty good or are there some errors?

[sprites]

it's only in basic EU3 , this one is from the french members ...
IN and HTTT are not tranlated officially
it has some errors , and sometimes the grammar isn't respected too :/

[sprites]

Chapter 3 :the rule of Abu I : the power of alliances

our new monarch was a wise man , and so greatly skilled he was called blessed by god.Early in his reign he was greatly impressed by the come of a holy man ('Abd al-Jalîl Shâh Amir , but i'll spare his name afterwards) and the religious aspect was somewhat more important after. national decisions were enacted in order to convert the heathens recently incorporated.
He denounced the sect practises and Established Sheikh ul-Islam Office with some side effects as increased revolt risk but more trained missionaries were at the disposal of the kingdom



unlike his father , he was not obsessed with the kingdom of ayut , but ended fighting it nearly as often ^^
another thing he didn't do as his father , he didn't take command of the armies personally , but rather appointed a general and watched it a few kilometers from the battles
the first war of his reign would come soon , but this was new , it was a defensive war
our wayward cousins of majahapit attacked or allies of Makassar , and we of course helped our allies , taking the leaderwhip of the war
fortunately , they had no alliances so the was was majahapit against Malacca* + aceh + makassar , and though they were quite rich , they did not build forts on their country self confident on their power.
too much self confidence is a usual way to disaster and we were able to enforce harsh terms in the peace negociations.



their fate was now sealed , and god even gave us two missions to conquer them , giving legitimate claims on two out of their four provinces
on these two wars not much was to be said , except we fought Ayut both times , having them concede defeat each time (and releasing Sukhotai the second time) , and our king ordered to delay an assault to allow them to complete their fortifications , storming them before defenders could get inside



a benign neglect event occured , bringing much needed funds to pay the missionaries
in 1430 he was wondering why nobody ever send merchants to jiangsu , and corrected this mistake ... the trade income of the realm , allowing to mint a few money while still investing more than before
in 1432 a skilled researcher presented himself to the court and was quickly hired , and the king decided more of these elite scientists would be needed , and that the realm should become a patron of art to attract these skilled men, and now should concentrate all research on producion tech.



as the conversions porgressed nicely , god tasked us to destroy the evil kingdom of ayut , this time for good , but that would not be done before many years



in 1435 it was brunei's turn to attack our allies our brothers on Makassar , and again we and Aceh agreed to help them
it would not be easy to beat them , their army wasn't that great but they had a formidable navy , the biggest one on the area ...
after months of baits andcareful positionning who saw makassar's navy sinked our navy , with some help from aceh's one , were able to achieve a major victory
after that , the war went sommthly , and Brunei was soon stormed by our armies , and had to sworn allegience to us



in 1438 the time to destroy that northern kingdom has come , and all their provinces except the capital were seized.we feared the samourai here would take some land , as they would be a formidable enemy to fight , but left empty-handed as they were not the alliance leaders




i'll stop here because something major happened shorlty after ^^ and we'll see it in the next chapter

Note on technology :

we are in a harsh group ... each tech cost about 2.5 times more than europeans
some priorities have to be made , as all levels don't bring the same benefits

-land tech has only few differences between 3 and 9 , i don't fear being a few levels backward , victory can be achieved with superior numbers and leadership
-naval tech .. same thing , even worse ... before level 9 i won't have to worry about pirates
-porduction tech , all levels 10-18 bring 2% instead of 1% effiency , but more important level 9 allow the workshops , they will boost the economy , and the poorer the land the more effective that boost is
-trade tech , level 7 allow to search for mecca and more advanced brothers in the west , the 'ottomans' being one of the two most advanced suitable countries at game start
later , level 15 allow monopolies and level 21 the marketplaces , but the europeans should get them before i do , they will boost the economy by quite a bit ^^

and the all important government tech , level 4 allow one idea , level 9 allow another , level 11 allows a third
some interesting decisions can be made with govt tech , most between levels 8 and 12

after the move towards narrowmindness i moved towards innovative with the -5 prestige event

and the king decided a 20-30 provinces country would be best , not too big that lag on tech , not too small where all neighbors are dangerous ^^
i expanded in lands somewhat richer than the starting 4 provinces , 2-4 base taxes ... that's low ^^

[aldriq]

Being in the Chinese tech group is... slow... du you plan to westernise later on?

[sprites]

feedback : yes i plan to westernize ... this happened a little sooner than i expected with an old good trick

chapter 4 : the end of abu I rule , and the great realm reform


world situation 1440 :



in 1443 one more expert arrived to the court quickly after the heir died. are those two events tied? no one knows the answer.
you can see the research strategy here ;: quiclly in one way , and super slow on all the others



you can notice the yellow on the top of the screen ... ming had some rebel problem and split in two : ming in the north , and a buddhist Wu in the south.
divided , the chinese look much less scary and carefully , we don't settle in their struggles
our next task is to conquer pegu , and it's nice as they currently own two good provinces



in 1447 , the war against pegu was going well , and a missionary fell ill , but he managed to convert the province the next day ... so the king shamelessly didn't send backup as the province was converted anyways



in november the same year, pegu was annexed and their allies assam declared defeat

in 1452 , following another divine task we annexed khmer , one province minor with a strange trade good .. it's the only place we know about that produces ivory , but as nobody knows what to do with it , the price is quite low , but we secured a rare ressource
the divine providence quickly requested a conversion , but they were quite narrowminded and won't convert until 1482 , so no new missions until then , and no new conquests for a while ^^

in 1453 , some animist rebels took overour northern province , but were stopped quickly , we had to convert that province again ... at least this time they would ambrace not only the true faith , but the right culture too



1456 was a good year : first the people of ligore were assimilated enough and our culture spread north , then we managed to prove some claims on our rivals , our ally aceh and the evil champa , but not the chinese as we stayed far fom them. we dit not claim these immediately , but we kept them for a good future occasion.



in 1458 some architects presented some new designs , they were quite innovative too



a mosque was build in Malacca following these new techniques
we could now modernize ... but the only more advanced country we knew about , Delhi , was only slightly better than ourselves so no significant progress could be made

in 1463 some porduction revolution occured , and the sultan profited from this occasion to change the national objective , the state would no longer sponsor arts but rather focus on expanding our trade



the national focus was moved to the island of Java and we started to enact land reforms , colonising the western part of the island too , discovering we could make nice bowls and vases much nearer than okinawa



in 1464 a border dispute occured with the province of chiang mai , as Lan Na was a opm witting there , and they were at some point vassals of the ayut kingdom , and some people argued we should have integrated them at the same time , but the sultan resolved the issue , saying it was 'a worthless piece of dirt'

in 1468 , ne year after promoting cultural unity , the province of surabaya was assimilated to our culture , and nobody remembered there was a former capital here before

the year 1469 was one to be remembered as a major milestone of the country's history
in june some great news arrived to the court: the legendary ottomans , the most advanced nation in the world , were revealed!



by august , some natives were repelled , a settlement founded , and offered to them in a peace token.



we quickly adapted some of our ways and were soon on par with our muslim brothers , on technology at least , but still one step behind the ottomans
they were kind enough to share a big part of the world with us , we know where mecca is - at least!- and they showed us even an incredible and very far continent : europe! but it's full of dangerous heathens , they said.



in 1471 , the old sultan passed away , maybe a little too impressed by all these western wonders , leaving the country to his son

there is now the question point : we will modernize two more times , technologically then militarly , but what to do next :

door 1 , we are strong enough , concentrate on colonizing indonesia , annexing our vassal , etc
door 2 : conquer the tip of india they were all owned by deccan but they impolded at some point ^^
door3 : establish a foothold on china/japan , but i'll be very very powerful after that , so maybe less challenge later

after that , i'll have (i hope) less free time , so maybe one or two updates in a week

[JDMS]

If you feel you'll be more powerful after gaining a foothold in China/Japan, then go for it.
Otherwise, go for India, they need to be converted to the true faith.

[sprites]

part 5 : a diplomat king and the end of the reforms


this will be more texted and less screenshots as i have less time to write this ^^ (and an exciting new beta)

1471 : a new ruler : Ma'ayat Shah I nazmizan , stats admin 3/ mil 3/ dip 8
at least he's good at something

our colony in demak reaches city status

1474 : we join hansa trade league and they opened the market , in a 1000+ CoT

1478 : production 9 is reached and workshops start sprouting everywhere in the country
a glorious monument is build in Mataram

1480 : we seize the three southern provinces from champa

now as i have a diplomatic ruler , time to clean my backyard a little ...

1483 : macassar accepted to be our vassals

1485 : Brunei is annexed. a 10k army is set on the island to quell revolts

1489 : champa is annexed , all our culture group provinces are in our sphere
a move towards freedom erases our inflation , better administration

1495 : we standardize the weights and mesures , improving the economic situation. not surprising as the country has provinces from not less than 10 nations if a look at the 1399 map!

1496 : we declare the statute on monopolies
the two provinces north of makassar are colonized
a six-star diplomat shows himself at the court and is hired , even with no infamy at that time

1497 : teutonic order start the protestantism.however this is a christian affair , no effects on the realm or his neighbors
the timurid empire implodes , no new nation is too big

1501 : we reach govt 11 and choose drill as third idea
the untrustworthy barbarians in the north warn us and insult us , so the solution of the "great vassal" is approved

1501-1502 : conquest of a lot of northern provinces , sukhothai is vassalized
white peace with ming as we don't have the resources to beat them

1505 : the king dies and we'll have a regency council (7/4/3) for a decade or so.
we can see also the great sukhotai vassal , we gave them all worthless northern provinces we conquered



delhi , who owned most of india , collapsed into a mess

1507 : the ottomans have trouble , and patriots seek to unite our colony back to the country

1508 : we modernize again , we are now in the eastern group (well i could have westernized once more , but i'm so advanced compared to other east asian nations ...)

1509 : our colony is back to the fold , and the chance to modernize is now gone , should we had not taken it

1510 : our national focus is now brunei , to help a little with the stability , and enact some useful decisions there , like roads , post offices and cultural unity

1516 : while the king is 14 years old and will soon rule of his own , the regency council decide to modernize the army , as the king isn't very skilled in administration but great elsewhere (5/8/8)
that reform turns the country revolt map all red for some three years , until the modifier vanishes
oct : our great diplomat made wonders , and while our reputation is impeccable , his skill for internal disputes is splendid and our stability is now only -1
nov : Ma'ayat Shâh II Nazmizan ascends to the throne



included the world map 1520

[JDMS]

Nice work.
What's your next target?

[tuore]

Interesting. Have you ever considered using capital letters at the start of sentences?

[sprites]

feedback

next target will be ... china !

tuore : i try but if i always put them right handwriting , i miss a lot typing ... well i re-read that part so it should be ok

short part 6 : gearing for the great war of Asia



In 1520 , malacca is a proud member of the wealthiest nations of the world ... double than our juicy target , Ming , but they have some big army that heavily outnumber us and a load of manpower to replace its losses.



As we can see here , we have a nice sukhotai vassals , fed with some of the best (...) lands of the area , provinces with base taxes from 1 to 5 (positive event in their capital when i hold it) and wool or grain in every province
They are still able to field 10 regiments of infantry , and they do NOT get access through dai viet as i have so they will stand still and not give some warscore to ming by running in their death stacks.

Some unimportant events occured , and in 1526 we hire a six-star quartermaster in prevision to the conflict over asian domination.

As we get holy war CB against all suitable enemies thanks to our divine supremacy idea , we are able to launch a djihad against them without bordering them in 1st august 1532.
the war was postponed until our third national idea , drill in our case to help our armies against endless ming armies.
Japan and Korea join ming , and we are helped with our vassal , and our ally aceh who is quite far from the area of operations and won't do anything noticeable.



For today , we will only see the two major operations of this war , the occupation or border province Jiangmen , catching the chinese off guard , and the loss of okinawa to their japanese allies , with the loss of our single galley who was docked there , they landed quite an army ^^.

[Cohacq]

Lets just hope you scorched Okinawa ^^