Children of the Sun - a Cuzco MEIOU AAR

[Boris ze Spider]

Do you plan on uniting your mesoamerican holdings with your South American ones?

[blsteen]

Nice getting colonies out of the English, now we'll see what you can do with the Portuguese

[Fornjotr]

Nice updates again. Good going, really enjoyed the progress. Americas are soon to be united under one flag

Just something I noticed in the updates...

The 20th is worse. A spice harvest in Tollan-Chohollan "has failed, although not badly", and somehow this apparently minor inconvenience in an insignificant province leads to an all-encompassing nationwide production crisis that lasts for a year.



I shudder to think what the consequences would be if a spice harvest actually failed badly in some province that actually matters.

Wasn't that a province modifier, not nationwide?

My navy meets with England's main fleet in July. Given the apparent size difference of our vessels, it goes very well.

And the Great Incan Navy encounters Man'oWars with rowing boats, yet still manage to win

Now to take care of the Big Yellow(ish) Blob, while she's having internal trouble...

[Fireaxe888]

It's nice to be simply able to seize your enemies' colonies. They pay for their founding, and you reap the rewards

[Axe27]

Oh god! A Spice failure! How are we going to into space now?

[FinnishFish]

Spice fail is fail...
But hey atleast Euros are getting angry :P

[FlorisDeVijfde]

I feel sorry for the Portuguese in middle-America. Those jungle provinces, soon to be your long sought connection of North and South, are great territory for the Incas to mount deadly ambushes. If they're smart they'll give them to you without a fight, as they seem to be doing now (apart from the skirmishes in the north and near the former english possessions).
The difference in income after the connection is established will be huge by the way.

[gabor]

Will it be possible to oust the Portuguese in just one war?

[Malurous]

Alright, sorry for my radio silence in this thread but I've been pretty busy lately. Thanks everyone for keeping it alive. Update soon unless I fall asleep first! I had weeks like this all the time when I studied and rarely had any problems, but after a much more peaceful year and a half since graduation, I'm just not used to consecutive days of running around from very early morning to late evening/night with only a short break or three anymore... Fortunately, I was done with a notable part of that stuff around an hour ago so things should normalize somewhat.

That is a bit easier clash with Portugal than Prawnstar had to face.

Haha, you could say that! Things like not being annexable, having quality troops etc. make a difference of some magnitude...

Sugar?
Europeans try to stay healthy!
Or vice versa...
Soon Mexico shall produce how much more, when the land gets connected? Enough?

My income absolutely skyrockets in these years, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly how much of that is the connection as we're advancing economically in many different ways. Sadly, my screenshots and saves aren't optimally timed when it comes to trying to find this information. But the effect is huge - I'll guesstimate that it leads to a growth of a bit under one third of my whole economy. From the facts I do have, that has to be pretty close.

Oh no, now I've spoiled that I'm eventually able to make the connection!

Heh, I suppose the Incas mostly eat maize and chocolate, judging by the cultivation (maize, cocoa, sugar). Come to think of it, I usually eat quite healthy, staple foods etc., but one delicacy that I absolutely love is this one brand of chocolate wafer that's made of maize. So our resources are fine by me.

Lucky break to England along for the ride. Shame the spies failed, but you know you can defeat Portugal.

The lucky and unlucky breaks tend to even out sooner or later, this time you can safely say that it was sooner. That triple fail has made the Espionage NI a priority.

That's one sorry looking Spain, if their troops weren't in the colonies watching the Incas, be different. Now you have the chance to link up the two halves of your empire taking 4 provinces to connect.

Being wary of us is indeed the logical explanation for their troop placement. I also fully believe that the stab hits I gave them played a part in their later problems.

Yes, at least four provinces will be needed. In a bare minimum scenario, I'd take the option that goes through Copan as that province is quite rich.

One question - in most of these AARs I see nations getting pretty large. Won't all those added provinces at some point start making research and stability recovery pretty painful?
Right now in my Divine Wind game I have been creating vassals like crazy to keep the efficiëncy high. That has problems too, of course .. especially since I want to switch religions.

Heh, I stopped caring about whether or not anything in my playing was efficient a long time ago. Generally, I feel that with most nations it's easy enough to end up in a situation where you're ahead of time in everything if you build up your infrastructure etc. properly and get good provinces, and at that point the difference from having bad provinces drag your tech down is negligible.

Really, IMHO it's a problem only if really many or all of the provinces in your starting position are ultra poor. In that situation you have to be careful with this and pick your spots more. The only situation where I might go as far as release vassals because of this is if I have one or two good provinces and a plethora of crappy ones. But I never claim to be optimal: as far as game success goes, I feel that making the most of your situation is more important than optimizing the situation. And I find it more fun to play like that.

This doesn't mean that I don't pay attention to provinces. However, I'd say that my approach is trying to acquire rich provinces, not trying to avoid poor ones (other than in the aforementioned exceptional situation, and more generally early on if I'm small as that's when one bad apple can cause the most damage). In this game's terms, getting Tenochtitlan will compensate for a large number of those questionable colonies.

Now, stability recovery is a different beast to some extent. It does get problematic when you're really big. But even there, things like wrong culture/wrong religion provinces, infamy etc. are more important factors than just province numbers. This is one of the easier games I've had in this regard - as a huge part of my provinces are either converted from a pagan religion or colonized, my culture and religion situations are excellent. Of course, I've worked towards this with my colonization policy (blocking rivals, aggressively seizing colonies that are still flippable).

Last but not least, welcome to the thread! You totally managed to make me rant!

Excellent work! Soon you'll be able to link your lands and start on the rest of the Americas.

Thanks, that's the plan!

Or the Incas. Or whatever you decide to call your lands.

Maybe Inkamarca (Region of Incas) for the Incas' internal usage? I guess I'll stick to America for simplicity.

About time the two Inca lands will be united!

You have a monopoly on sugar and the bonus is 10%, is that huge?

Yeah, you could say that there was an obstacle or two to get past.

That modifier is responsible for roughly 3 % of my total income at this point, so it's nothing to scoff at. A very nice bonus.

Noting the screenshot should those English ships not be called very, very large carracks instead? I had to laugh at the difference in size between both fleets!

A very good war for you, and very obliging for England to step forward for punishment when you had no casus belli to otherwise hook them in. Portugal are no doubt in a great deal of trouble...

It was indeed kind of them to accommodate me like that. Really, I would have had a hard time getting a war with them if they had stayed out of that one.

Do you plan on uniting your mesoamerican holdings with your South American ones?

Yes, that's the war aim. Much like getting the first half of that connection was the goal of that successful Spanish war earlier.

Nice getting colonies out of the English, now we'll see what you can do with the Portuguese

It was really good to be able to take on the English. Portugal alone isn't that scary, it's the Spanish guarantee that kept me from fighting them earlier...

Nice updates again. Good going, really enjoyed the progress. Americas are soon to be united under one flag

Thanks! That's the goal.

Just something I noticed in the updates...

Wasn't that a province modifier, not nationwide?

AFAIK the production_efficiency modifier is always nationwide. Otherwise, why would local_production_efficiency exist? The way it looks like in the game and therefore screenshot is because it fires for a province. Someone more knowledgeable on the modding etc. side of things could of course confirm.

And the Great Incan Navy encounters Man'oWars with rowing boats, yet still manage to win

Now to take care of the Big Yellow(ish) Blob, while she's having internal trouble...

Yeah. Spain is certainly looking like it can be attacked whenever I'm ready.

It's nice to be simply able to seize your enemies' colonies. They pay for their founding, and you reap the rewards

Yeah, I'm happy with this policy. It's good that I'm this far in the colony seizing: the Europeans now have such high trade tech that colonies only take a couple of years to grow into a city. If I were just a decade or two behind from where I am, a lot of those provinces would have been impossible to seize.

Oh god! A Spice failure! How are we going to into space now?

Spice fail is fail...
But hey atleast Euros are getting angry :P

Well, I can't blame them. The circumstances are what they are after all.

I feel sorry for the Portuguese in middle-America. Those jungle provinces, soon to be your long sought connection of North and South, are great territory for the Incas to mount deadly ambushes. If they're smart they'll give them to you without a fight, as they seem to be doing now (apart from the skirmishes in the north and near the former english possessions).
The difference in income after the connection is established will be huge by the way.

It is absolutely huge. I go from 8000 ducats to 13000 ducats within a few years but, like I explained in my answer to Enewald, I can't tell how much exactly the connection does as there are also tech advances, major province improvements, producer bonuses (which are of course also thanks to expansion) and even a couple of cores and conversions during this time. But the effect is huge, that's safe to say.

It's true that just giving the Mesoamerican lands would be a good call. I'd probably accept such a deal, but since there isn't such an offer, I suppose I'll have to go deeper into their lands and cause some pain.

Will it be possible to oust the Portuguese in just one war?

Out of Mesoamerica you mean? Should be. But I'm not certain what the peace will be - the only sure thing is that it'll have to include those four provinces needed for the connection.

[Malurous]

Chapter Fifty-one
1644-1645

I have seized the first batch of Portuguese South American colonies by the end of September.



The small army I have there will continue south along the coast to a separate Portuguese colony - or possibly more, as it's TI south of that one.

Also in the final days of the month, the sieges of Copan and Quiriqua finish. The former leads to Portugal's local three ship fleet (the one that had been blockading me before I sent ships to the area) leaving port and running into my fleet. That's one big ship and two small ones in the bottom of the Bay of Costa Rica.

I get this event for some of the Portuguese provinces that I take.



It obviously has something to do with the Aeterni Regis bull, but I have no idea what the event does. Other than crash my ordinarily very stable computer on two different occasions, which I find very suspicious. Fortunately, I save very often when something major is going on, so I never have to replay more than a month and, also fortunately, nothing important happens during the periods I have to do twice.

My army heading south notices something interesting in October.



There's a Portuguese colonist heading for Xobleng. It should arrive in about half a year. I'll have to remember not to peace out before I've taken care of that. Of course, one more target province still has to fall before that and the Portuguese aren't willing to negotiate anyway.

Galicia declares independence in November.



It has Galicia as well as the province that Spain earlier took from Portugal. However, Spain takes the second province and vassalizes Galicia in their war of independence.

The Catholics cause some trouble, leading to increased RR and rebellions.



That area is heavily garrisoned so we make short work of the rebels.

However, this makes me decide that the time to convert the heathens is now.



The cardinal replaces the ulama, which is unfortunate as the RR help would be nice. But the conversion chances are rising so it's about time I got some missionaries again.

We take the separate Portuguese colony and find out that there isn't more than one there.

Karapoto, one of the former Portuguese colonies, upgrades from grain to sugar while we send a colonist to the vacant province south of it, Tupiniki. With that and Xobleng which we plan to steal, we'll have a connection to the separate province.

I start exploring more of the Portuguese territory in North America when 1645 begins, while we also take our first province in the area when Cocotame falls in March.



A couple of Portuguese transports run out of the TI east of southern Brazil. I don't know where they were going or coming from, but another navy detachment that I left in that region sinks them.

So why is there only a detachment there? I sent the main fleet north to locate Portuguese ships. Turns out that they have mid-size fleets sitting in ports in both North America and Cuba, but no major one.

Caruaru, one of the provinces I took from the Dutch, grows into a city, while the Portuguese colonist arrives in Xobleng. My troops arrive on the same day and seize the colony, making these parts of South America fully Incan.



A new Idea becomes available in April.



The infamy reduction goes to waste right now, but it should be very helpful over the rest of the game, and of course I expect to take provinces real soon. And the limit increase should make a difference for what I'm able to take.

Kareguaje becomes a core in May, while formerly English Xucuru is culture flipped.

The first province I colonized, Tumaco, is nuked back to a colony in June as an earthquake kills 800 of the 1300 inhabitants. It becomes a very high colonist priority as it's a productive core province when healthy. There are also 3000 deaths in Pasto.

My main navy settled in a blockade that jammed a Portuguese fleet in Tonkawa earlier, and in July I force the ships out by assaulting the province.



Within the next five days, the sieges of Karankawa and Xi'ui succeed. I guess the defenders heard of the successful assault and didn't want the same fate.

Controlling more land, I move ahead and also start exploring further.

Tapeba, the northernmost of the English colonies, grows into a city in August, while Aonikenk starts producing fish in September.

Later in the month, 2500 people die of the plague in Tollan-Chohollan. That's becoming a problem province, what with the recent spice issue and an earlier earthquake.

The next province I was exploring in North America turns out to be a colony, so I seize Zacatlan for myself.

Matagalpa falls in October, giving me control of all the provinces I need, and in fact all of Portuguese Mesoamerica.



Now I need to force a peace. Again, these provinces aren't giving me much warscore, so we need to get some in other ways. A European invasion might be possible but also difficult (the ledger suggests that they may have too many men there for me to be able to beat them with what I can transport without taking the time to expand my fleet), so battle warscore would be preferable.

However, unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese aren't bringing in more men for us to kill - perfectly understandable seeing that we've destroyed their transports save one - so I suspect it's the Incas that'll have to do the "deliveries".

[Omen]

Fantastic to see an update, and a great war so far. I don't suppose you have enough positive relations with anyone in Europe to get military access. That would be one way. Good luck, and I'm happy to see you back updating this great AAR.

[Athalcor]

Maybe if you blockade mainland Portugal you can extend the troubles in Iberia to Portugal as well...

[Chief Ragusa]

Sterling job keeping South America Incan territory alone. Still those nasty Spanish cities, which plague and natural disasters seem not to touch. Keep pushing the Portuguese, blockade them and push their war exhaustion.

[Boris ze Spider]

Yes, the epic invasion of Europe shall begin.

[gabor]

Fingers crossed you can get war score high enough.

[Malurous]

Fantastic to see an update, and a great war so far. I don't suppose you have enough positive relations with anyone in Europe to get military access. That would be one way. Good luck, and I'm happy to see you back updating this great AAR.

Hey, it was six days between the updates, it's not like I was gone for an eternity! But of course it's good to see that there's demand. And thanks for the compliment!

Well, I at least got access from the League of Lezhe nicely enough in the Tuscan war. That was the European country I had the best relations with, but still it tells me that I should be able to get military access somewhere close to Iberia at least with bribes. However, I don't want to do it that way: I don't want to enter Europe via military access tricks or by beating up on some weakling. I want to do it with style. That, in my mind, is more important than doing it quickly, especially since there are other ways to force peace for American provinces.

Maybe if you blockade mainland Portugal you can extend the troubles in Iberia to Portugal as well...

That's one possible option to make them more interested in signing peace. However, I don't think I could cause them to have the kind of problems Spain has - unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese have a pretty good number of troops in Europe for the amount of land they have there.

Sterling job keeping South America Incan territory alone. Still those nasty Spanish cities, which plague and natural disasters seem not to touch. Keep pushing the Portuguese, blockade them and push their war exhaustion.

Thanks! Yeah, that's how I'll do it. Additionally, there are some invasion plans...

I don't like having those Spanish lands there, but at least they're contained. There shouldn't be any more than they currently have, which means that I can eventually drive them out.

Yes, the epic invasion of Europe shall begin.

It should, just not quite yet. As long as I'm taking American land (number one priority, and more so until I've taken enough to block any further colonization) I don't think I'll be invading Europe unless it's necessary for forcing peace.

This can change quickly if I end up in a situation where I have infamy room and truces with both Iberians. If such a situation doesn't occur, it might take a while.

Fingers crossed you can get war score high enough.

Thanks! I should be able to do that, but the question is how quickly. A quick finish to this war means that I'm ready (infamy down and colonies turned to cities) earlier to strike at Spain, which I want to do while they're vulnerable.

[randakar]

Heh, I stopped caring about whether or not anything in my playing was efficient a long time ago. Generally, I feel that with most nations it's easy enough to end up in a situation where you're ahead of time in everything if you build up your infrastructure etc. properly and get good provinces, and at that point the difference from having bad provinces drag your tech down is negligible.

Oh, "good provinces" is not a problem in this game - I play Holland, converted to the Dutch empire. The netherlands with most of current day belgium and parts of northern france added is pretty rich, and cored. Two inheritances (a hungary blob and a great britain blob) made me grow way too fast though..

Really, IMHO it's a problem only if really many or all of the provinces in your starting position are ultra poor. In that situation you have to be careful with this and pick your spots more. The only situation where I might go as far as release vassals because of this is if I have one or two good provinces and a plethora of crappy ones. But I never claim to be optimal: as far as game success goes, I feel that making the most of your situation is more important than optimizing the situation. And I find it more fun to play like that.

Oh, I don't really want to be optimal either. But I do wonder whether I really want to continue the path of conquering small bits and pieces and vassalising the rest, or just go ahead and convert the HRE so that I can start blobbing like mad. The hungary land really does seem to make that a worthwhile option, since it has no land connection otherwise.

Now, stability recovery is a different beast to some extent. It does get problematic when you're really big. But even there, things like wrong culture/wrong religion provinces, infamy etc. are more important factors than just province numbers. This is one of the easier games I've had in this regard - as a huge part of my provinces are either converted from a pagan religion or colonized, my culture and religion situations are excellent. Of course, I've worked towards this with my colonization policy (blocking rivals, aggressively seizing colonies that are still flippable).

I just took the -5 stab hit to go to protestantism. Some very rich provinces around Antwerpen converted there. Recovery of one point was somewhere in the 10 year range, with full investment. I still have overextension though (after the inheritances) so that kinda hurts. Luckily some missions and a great man event really helped me get that back up or it may have become a real issue.
However, the main issue I have is culture. I am confident I will be able to religion flip most of the remaining important provinces, but culture is an entirely different beast that I do not quite understand how to manage. Especially with the huge amount of magistrates I need ..
The year is about 1525 or so, so I have still plenty of play time to rectify that. Once I figure out how
(Besides, this thread really isn't about -my- game. Sorry for drifting off-topic.)

Last but not least, welcome to the thread! You totally managed to make me rant!

Thanks. And you're welcome

[Axe27]

Incan Conquistadors. I like it.

EDIT: Don't forget to stab hit them all to hell too. That also helps.

[Zzzzz...]

Turn them into a tribal democracy

[Aliasing]

Sounds fun...