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The principle's involving the china and asia are somewhat agreed among us all, the details are the ones that needs assertion. I don't like the idea that China or more likely Blayne's nation gets free AI hunting grounds compared to the those of other asia nations. There was noting gradually wrong in the Dano's scenario, outside the issue that it didn't offer Blayne's china fraction a free pass to domination that no other asian nation can achive. I therefore support fully the Dano's orginal mod and if Blayne finds some nation there "restrictive", he then picks up another nation from the same setup rather than goes fixing the whole setup more to his liking.

these are my principle's but like I said, I don't want to discuss them before I fully know what nation I and Blayne would play via GM blessing.
 
Golle please explain why an AI that is equaldistant between me and two other nations qualifies as me "getting a free pass", the idea is that the Asian scenario as Dano originally made it had too many humans in it forcing a zero-sum gain/loss mechanic in the diplomatic interactions of the players because they lack having suitably position AI minors in which to qualify as an alternative point of interaction.

Even under my proposal I would be technically no stronger then any other nation at start in terms of income/manpower, they all at the beginning have the diplomatic option to intervene via proclaiming gaurantee in the first few days, there is a whole slew of diplomatic options they could do to maintain the balance of power if I or any other nation gets too strong.

In the last EU3 game I was probably 3-4 times stronger at start then the position I would be now AND I was stopped cold in my tracks at the very beginning due to a coalition of the other Asian powers, what makes this impossible to happen again?

It's restrictive golle because Asia under Dano's mod virtually leaves no room for 'easy expansion' as the Europeans (at least in vanilla) get in abundance, everyone's major expansion route except for one is blocked almost immediately by another Human, this isn't there in the Europe start scenario, in Europe there's plenty of options for expansion away from Humans where in the beginning is only greed or fear leads to any early wars, in Asia with Wu there in the middle forces war possibly right from the start.

My modification simply provides everyone in the vicinity additional breathing room, the idea is to make Asia more analogous to Europe.

Your answer is basically "if you don't like it tough".
 
The idea is not to make Asia analong to Europe. Its asia. the only reason why the set up is alltogether messed is simply becouse no one wants you to play unificated china. Only fraction of european nations will have "free" pass attack AI, and in those circumstances, they would still have to make sacrifices for that road. Many nations like Currently Bavaria, Poland, Croatia, Byzantium and Germany will have to take what they can from other players. It will be tough game for them and they have all played from the start and build up their nations from the start.

Thats why I don't like that the most potent Asian nations (coastal china) and India will be granted not only more favorable starting position but also a free expansion route to make their status even more better. I want the asian game to be as brutal as it will be in europe and may the best player win. After all this is MP game intended to take meassure among us humans.
You can whack AI in SP as much as you want...
 
Your attacking a strawman golle.

Firstly, asia is being divided up not just to nerf China but also to provide additional player slots, slots that we are unlikely to reliably fill, removing one unnessasary nation is a way to alleviate the prssure for having 20 some odd perms.

Technically no one in either case gets a free pass, in Europe other nations are free to complain and intervene/object, same in Asia with my proposal and also in asia need to make correspondingly more sacrifices as in total there is only 4 AIs under my proposal in the center vicinity while there is likely at least 12 in Europe.

There is nothing in my proposal that makes it an inherently easier game, only that it removed a needless complication.

Also how is coastal China more potent? Its advantage is coast and trade, Wu has manpower, Khanate has size, tibet has its mountains, Japan is an island and invulnerable for the first half of the game and Khmer and India have easy AI expansion routes, Dano had already balanced each one against each other so that everyone has relative strengths and weaknesses, my modification doesn't change this.

Your not suggesting making it "as brutal" you want it to be even more brutal in order to discourage me from playing in it.
 
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Am I? remember Blayne, that as an destined Asian player, Im not inflicting this upon anyone else than myself. I want fair game in asia, thats why I orginally got so well taken from the Dano's set up as IMO back then it really did offer one.
 
Jean Dôn​

The old man was sitting quietly in the balcony. He let the breeze blew over him. He didn’t mind the chill, despite his old bones screamed in opposition. Nothing really mattered. If he was to catch a cold this morning and struggle in fewer before the night – then pass away from this life tomorrow, then so would things be. He was not afraid of dying. Anytime would have done.

Dôn still gave him a motherly look and placed his heavy cloak little bit better upon his shoulder, almost unnoticed fist but then Jean tried to chase her away from pampering himself so much. But in the end he just settled for warm smiles and little bit of that Elfand’s glimmer in Dôn’s eyes.

“You do not fear the death by coming this way outside in such weather.”
Jean didn’t answer. He wanted to say that in Wales, back in the old times of his youth, weather used to be more severe, but that hardly hold no true. If the Children of Foulgues had chosen their exile in terms of punishment, this far away land was like God’s own impression of hell.
“I would give just about everything for a death of common man. To die in pneumonia, to die from broken lungs. What a thought for an assassin to wish upon.”
“You are being too harsh upon yourself” Dôn answered. Her smile was really elfish today, merely mocking everything human and serious in most appropriate fairy fashion.
“Am I?”
“If not then you are being just silly.”

But Jean didn’t answer. The cold wind from Valhalla and from the graves all around the known world made him shiver more than the day’s normal breeze had done.
And for a moment Dôn sensed it. The presence of his own ghosts around old Jean. She remained silent for a moment but finally asked:
“You are taking lot of haunt with you to the afterlife if you cannot let them pass you Jean.”
But Jean didn’t answer first…

“You know. Lot of them had been children? Innocent and lively lads so full of future and life, but I have…I have had to take it away from them. …Because of what? They have born with wrong name?”
“If you bare guilt over them, aren’t you at same breath stake stating how your own will and mind have not been able to control the hand that holds the knife?”
“I served both of my brothers. I have served my nephew well. If I wouldn’t have had will over my guilt, I would have been betraying my own name…”
“My name, Dôn…”
And Jean kept silence again. He had only come aware of Dôn’s true nature late in his life, still not certain whether to accept her as his great grandmother as well as the Queen of the Elfland.
“If those deaths bring dishonest toyour name, why you condemn my guilt?”
“Are we witty this morning, aren’t we?” Dôn smiled. She then turned her gaze outside from the castle, upon the ever green forest and myriads of lakes that surrounded them.
“How many nations? How many graveyards? I recall Bavaria, Germany, Rome, Egypt…Russia…how much of world you have seen just to bring death in my name?”
“The death himself must envy you there in the other side. Your clan has made fortunes with their trade. I think I’ve earned more money to our family’s estates than Arnoul or Pierre ever did as princes.”
“Well you, Jean Dôn, are not among the famous people of the earth.”
“I know. And that’s how it should have been. You tend not get to pass the guards and spymaster as the world wide known assassin. This trade is for those of pedestrian fame. I have never sought as to be remembered from what I’ve done. Let my tombstone be: “A loving husband, father and brother, ever loyal servant with humble heart.”

Dôn didn’t answer. She had little of condemnment and judgment left for this old man that so much have suffered among the rest of her children. If he wouldn’t have done what he had done, someone else would have. Sometimes the ways of the man were distant and strange for Dôn. She didn’t envy them for the load they had to carry.
 
Wow... 35 pages in an AAR thead, with 10% AAR content and 90% arguing over game mechanics, rules and setup for a game that hasn't even started... Wow.
 
The Fatimid Caliphate: Gold and troubles


islamy.jpg

It was an golden age for the Caliphate. With all of Syria, Africa and most of the Islands under its control there was no tradegood that did not pass through its ports on their way to far off places. Thanks to Afzals dirigent handling of the fleet and bureaucrats, and the Italian ports reopening after the war, no city or hamlet flying the emerald banners could call itself poor. It was a prosperous and peaceful time, taxes were low and the people content.

Not so with the Emirs and the army. The glorious arms of Ala'i had been reduced to governors and policemen, and at this there was much consternation. Despite Afzals fatwas on raiding al-Andalus and Syria brewed with skirmishing and probing attacks. The quagmire that was northern al-Andalus had been handed of to more adjacent and capable men, but the hostilities on the Byzantine and Persian borders were all to close to be ignored. In the north Greek nobles had occupied old abandoned border forts south of Aleppo and east of Edessa, and it was only thanks to Afzals diplomatic skills that the area could be recovered without war. In Persia full on field battles between Baghdad and Fatimid protectorates had forced the Calipha to send in his personal Banners to protect Euphrates from the apostates. But the Emirs were not the only ones plotting against peace, the Hassassin cult had their own agendas. In Beirut Sayyid Fatimid, ostracized Master of Intelligence to the Calipha, orders an incident to provoke war with Byzantion and weaken Afzals hold on the throne. In Byzantion Patriarch Guaram Komnenos is interrupted in his malicious work to facilitate a Greek uprising on Crete by the message that his favorite grandson Malhaz lies writhing in horrible pain, an obvious case of poisoning.


sayyid.jpg

Having been expelled from Alexandria by his father had not dampened Sayyids hunger for control and power, nor cut his connections with the underbelly of society


But the Caliphate being hard to control was not anything new to the iron resolve of the Fatimid line. Afzal was the pure blood of the Prophet himself! Blessings and peace be upon his name. With response to the unwillingness of his Emirs to bend before his will, and the Patriarch of Byzantion screaming for vengeance the Calipha ordered the entire court moved to Alexandretta. From whence he could oversee both unruly underlings, plotting Persians and grumbling Greeks.

Especially the Greeks were troublesome. At the end of Ala'i's reign they were a court in exile plagued by family infighting, with the Thomasine campaign in Italy and the alliance with the Persians they now posed a real problem. Both Caliphas had responded by signing agreements of non-aggression with the purpur throne, but many questioned if this had not only led to the strengthening of the Caliphates enemies. Many argued it would be better to strike now with the help of the Europeans, before they grew even bigger, others feared German and Croat armies would simply crumble and allow more land to be taken by Byzantion. The Calipha however had no interest in fighting in Anatolia, or anywhere else for that matter, it is with Gold, stone and sail that nations command the world.

Men sing poetically of swords and blood, they do not understand they are merely numbers under the quill for the thinker to trade with.
 
When has the world seen his like?

As a child, Thomas saw the court of the Emperor Leo flee the very City of Men's Desire; the great walls were no protection against treasonous weakness within. Not, perhaps, since the sack of the city of Rome by the Celts, long before the birth of Christ, had the fortunes of Rome sunk so deep. Foreign boots in Constantinople; infidel banners in the islands; the very title, Basileus Romaion, in barbarian hands; Croatian troops two hundred miles from Thessalonika where the court fled. Would any man have been surprised if, following such disasters, the Roman Empire had sunk into ignominy and decadence, and disintegrated at last to make room for new peoples? A picket don't last forever, nor a state; and in the end, this, too, shall pass is the only enduring wisdom.

And yet within a single generation, within one man's lifetime, how much is changed! Let those who think that single men cannot matter to the course of history take note. Croatia is humbled, reduced in size by a third; only through the intervention of Russian swords did it avoid the very fate it threatened Rome with, dissolution into several warring statelets and eventual absorption by united peoples. The Sublime Porte is again the site of the Roman court and government. The cataphracts have restored the terror of their arms throughout the Balkans; and where once only the infidel knew respect for the name of Komnenos, now mothers from Ragusa to the sources of the Rhine threaten their children with the wrath of Thomas, should they not be good.

Men have been given the name of Imperator for far lesser deeds; what can we say then of the Italian campaign, except to heap praise upon praise? When all's said and done, the jibe of Ioannes the Megas Domestikos rings true: "They were only Croatians." But then there is Italy; none can accuse the Normans of being an unmartial race, yet they fell before Thomas's lightning campaign in a single year, and Rome itself opened the gates to a rightful Emperor for the first time in half a millennium. "Thomas ante portas!", but the Knytling Pope had none of the unbending firmness that the Senate showed; nor did Catholic Europe rise to throw out the interloper. And then, piling achievement on achievement, the same army marched north, pacifying all of Italy south of the Alps, sweeping all resistance before them. Where was the vaunted Gothian army of yesteryear? What of the famous levy of well-mounted knights, of stout pikemen, of swarthy crossbows? None long resisted Thomas where he chose to lead an army; those that did, died. Only his magnanimity left the de Toulouses in possession of their land; for he had made his point in demanding the return of the title, Basileus Romaion, and imposed no tribute other than that paid to the foremost fighting man of a generation.

The crushing of the subsequent risings in southern Italy and Anatolia, which he did while skirmishing in the north with Croatia, are hardly worth mentioning in such a litany; now the Empire is solid, fully united under one man's hand for the first time in generations. The great magnates are humbled, and dare not rise; the bureaucracy is loyal, and makes no obstructions; the church is ecstatic at seeing lands brought back from heresy, and the people - ah! The people, and the army, love nothing better than an Emperor who brings them victory and glory.

And yet withal, the man has not yet seen his fiftieth year. Caesar wept at his thrirtieth birthday, because he had not yet conquered the world like Alexander; yet in the few years that remained to him, he built a conqueror's name whose reverberations have not yet died. What then of Thomas? What can he not accomplish, in whatever time remains to him?

And yet it was a wise man who said, "Praise no man as happy while he yet lives." Only God knows what the morning will bring.
 
Just a note for the readers of my Knautschling AARs:
There will be no update this week due to lack of material. Next week will feature both this session and the next and hopefully have some good action, too.
 
Mupdate Session 16; In which there are many bad excuses for stealing other peoples rebellious vassals

See if you can match the correct player to these shoddy attempts at justification before reading the rest of the post! :D :

-"But I accidentally clicked on Declare war!"
-"He sniped one of mine 43 sessions ago!"
-"Because the waves belong to me!"
-"My vassal did it!"
-"Assassins don't count if I pay someone else to do it!"


session16.jpg


-The two Romes continue their battle over Italy with KoM sniping Pisa, netting him fully half of Italy, Jakalo however manages to get his realm in line.

-Denmark sends a couple of assassins against the childless Duke of Crete/Cyprus/Rhodes but fail. Preliminary torture indicates Byzantine coin behind the dastardly deed, in a clear attempt to get his dynasty to inherit the islands. The action is a clear breech of the treaty of Crete, but hard evidence is lacking.

-Russia gets his bastard God-King at age 43, and finishes building of the Lugbúrz.

-Cordoba is almost finished asserting its rule over al-Andalus

-Bavarias vassal snipes some of Jakalos Austrian vassals.

-I take Sardinia in accordance with my longstanding claim that the Calipha rules the waves. Unfortunately Jakalo had not been informed of this when he took over, some reparations may be due.

-Persia yet again attempts to invade one of my wayward vassals, but a lucky crash-rehost allows me to just preempt him.

-In retaliation I snipe the Archbishopric of Mosul, sadly it is not enough to repair the loss of my Spanish holdings. :(

-I am unfairly accused of hypocrisy for sniping other peoples vassals when I bashed Fivoin for doing the same. :eek:

-Some people are still under the illusion that the Fiat powers were bluffing.
 
OMG! Did you just name Russia Mordor just because i said that Russia is Mordor =X
 
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Introductions to Polarian Empire

Map of Polarian Empire Circa 1178​
Map-1.jpg

Polaria, my kingdom, my Empire! Such an lovely place to be for an Polish man even though i am German myself. Yes German thanks my mother, she made me this way even got married to an German girl from Tirol. Lovely girl she is but more of her later. From an small tribe of Polans led by the Piasts we have grown in to an Kingdom, i mean Empire of Polans ruled by my family the Tilius.

We orginate somewhere from the heart of Poland from a small village called Hyneria. I guess it was burned down in the war against the Piast but i can never be sure. So we took the throne by force as the Piast kings were weak and unfit to lead our people. The war was bloody but my ancestors were victorious and thus my great great grand father Father Tilius crowned himself as the first Dominar of Polaria and declared the Polarian Empire born.

We have come long way from that and the journey hasn't been without troubles but the troubles have been more domestic than foreign. Except the time that Dominar Pygel the Stupid got Polaria annexed by Denmark. Nobody really knows what happened there but Polaria was saved soon enough thanks to the kind lords of Denmark. Our nations has allways been surrounded by bigger powers and we have felt the consuquences.

Royal Family of Tilius​
Dominar Manfred I Tilius of Polaria
Me.jpg
Lookie here it's me! Don't i look sexy? What no? Who said that? Off with the head! But anyways this who i am an German rulin Polaria and Polish people. I like thumbs up, keys and chickens, um lovely little chickens, roasted or smashed. Delicious. And most of all i like money, i love it, i adore it and i would bloody have sex with it if i would know how. But enough about me now to the other members of my family.

Dorothea von Tirol, Dominatrix of Manfred Tilius
Wife-1.jpg

This is my wife, year older than me but hey in these days of hideous disseases you cant be too picky. You should really see the wife that the ruler of East Rome has, ugly beast. She is a religious one, one could say that she has an halo around her head. I dont know about that really, you know an ring around your head that is habited by some bugs and lizards, not for me thank you.

Amalberga Tilius
Dauhgter.jpg

My oldest child is a girl and she is my daughter. Not much to say about her as i send her to the Archbishopric of Greater Polaria to be educated in the ways of political scheming.

Osterhild Tilius
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My second daughter .
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=475236
Irmgard Tilius
3daughter.jpg

My third daughter.

Tomasz Tilius, Count of Cieszyn
Bro.jpg

My lovely little brother. He is the count of Cieszyn, where ever that is, i guess it is somewhere in Polaria but who cares. He is my heir because i dont have a son and females cant inherit the title of Dominar and thus they cant inherit Polaria thus says the old scripts of Kopolt. Well if i die by little bro will take over but he has to mean looking eyes wich point in strange directions and also his neck is tilted backwards. Not good, I think i will make a boy.

Powers around Polaria​

Mordord or Empire of Love
Russia.jpg

All of Russias. Well they are our neighbor in the east. We have a warm relationship but not in a gay way. No. No. Hola. Yes we need to study them more in order to make a good view out of them.

Denmark
Denmakr.jpg

Ah Denmark and the Ynglings in disguise of Knauchtslings. Funny little people living in the north allways looking for something called Hotel Savoy. What ever that is, i think i'll stay in touch with them as maybe i could get Stettin out of their small hands.

Croatia
Croatia.jpg

Slavs, Southern Slavs, kinsmen, inferior beings, nah but they live under us so i guess that has something to do with something. Their king has copied my hair style. Nice to be of an exsample. Not much is known about this Croatia but i will find out who they are and why are they there.

Das Bavaria
Bavaria.jpg

Big nosed Germans of Bavaria. The Crusader King of Bavaria is our western neighborh. All i know about them that they always say the same phrase which goes somethin like this "Ein, zwei, ein, zwei build our Empire and the celebrate it with a big far and then lose the whole frekking Empire by the end of the war". Well that is a nice motto if one would call it that.

Ally of de Flandre
Ally-1.jpg

Neustria, the Western land or Kingdom. I like their Coats of Arms, they have these golden lions in an downwards pyramind. Nice. We are allies not much else but i think our alliance will end soon.


After words​

So yes that was an introduction to the Polarian Empire. I am Manfred Tilius and i am the Dominar of Polaria. And also you owe taxes. Thank you!
 
Might I just sneak in and say you all deserve a Lord Strange Cookie.
Your evil machinations, propaganda and back-stabbing prove that strategy gamers might rule the world, but then destroy it within 5 minutes, because the borders look funny.

Also, go Proper Rome!
Down with fake Rome!
Down with Russia!
Up with Denmark!
Down with infidels!
May the world be entirely Greek or Norse!
*throws penuts*