Children of the Sun - a Cuzco MEIOU AAR

[Rabid]

A, watching you sit around waiting to westernize isn't really that much fun

[Boris ze Spider]

Most definitely A

[Malerun]

C.) Sacrifice someone to a volcano.

After that, A.

This. After that convert A and volcano to cacao.

[Chief Ragusa]

A.

Replaying on from any save never gives the same result.

[Basileus444]

I'd say go with A. You've already waited long enough.

[PrawnStar]

A & save more often - I'm saving every three months at the moment (and monthly during the last TSC).

[Enewald]

A!!!!
I want proper bloodshed!
Blood for the bloodgods!
To Lisbon!
Build the Incan Armada!

[Athalcor]

The gods say A.
P.S. Bring some fat guys to the altar and nobody will get mad about the crash.

[aldriq]

Definitely A, you've waited long enough. Clearly tha AI not only cheats editing the save game, it also freezes the game when things are going too well for the player

[morningSIDEr]

I have to agree with everyone else and vote for A. You have been waiting for more than long enough, the game crashing should not forestall your rise any further!

[Malurous]

I'm counting 15-0 in favor of A - I'd call that conclusive. And if it's a tennis point, I sure as hell am not going to wait for the match to finish before continuing.

I therefore played some and an update is imminent, mostly maps. Thanks everyone for the votes, I'll answer some of the other comments here.

I'm glad to have come across this AAR. Interesting story/game play and an active audience equals a fun read while showcasing a great Mod in MEIOU.

Welcome and thanks for the praise! You pretty much listed here what I aimed for when I started this, so I'm obviously very glad to hear that.

it just feels right for your empire to take the next step instead of being forced back to the waiting game. Its high time for Chirldren of the Sun to meet their next challenge and see how they fair on the big stage.

I agree with this angle as well, both regarding game progress and simply the date. It's almost 1589, in our time line the Inca Empire had pretty much fallen over half a century ago and the last Sapa Inca had died more than a decade ago as well. Comparing to this, it's high time that the Incas in my version start causing the Europeans some trouble!

Look forward to see where this AAR will lead to. Been an interesting ride so far, but I'm sure the best has yet to come.

Yeah, my assumption is that you've come in at a good time. I'm some ways ahead again and it's getting somewhat intense...

A, watching you sit around waiting to westernize isn't really that much fun

Are you implying that 90 % of this AAR has sucked? Or is it more fun to watch me sit around waiting to inherit or form a personal union or whatever other stuff I've been sitting around waiting for? More seriously, I see what you mean.

A & save more often - I'm saving every three months at the moment (and monthly during the last TSC).

I ordinarily do save often, but given the long times of nothing happening and the slow speed of the mod, I don't want any additional delays.

Besides, most of the time an early April crash in this game would have meant replacing three months of nothing with three months of nothing. My wild guess is that three months of a Horde TSC are a bit different!

A!!!!
I want proper bloodshed!
Blood for the bloodgods!
To Lisbon!
Build the Incan Armada!

Will do, that's one of the things I'll finally be able to do!

The real reason I quoted this is that it made me wonder if you're the good kind of blood craving lunatic or the bad kind. I mean, this is online so I suppose I'm safe. But then again, we live in the same city so that's a bit worrying. I'm sure you see my dilemma.

[Malurous]

Chapter Thirty-seven
1588-1589

To cap off 1588, a missionary is dispatched to Oaxaco.

Then finally on April 10th 1589, Yahuar Hacuac dies and Tupac Hualpa II rises to the throne!



A small celebration is sufficient because of our recovered legitimacy. Tupac Hualpa II is an Elusive Shadow, giving penalties to yearly diplomats (-0.1) and yearly prestige (-2.5 %). He also has an exceptional heir, Huascar, but that doesn't do much good as he dies within months. You'd think someone would look after a hunting fifteen year old a bit.

But I'm not going to cry over that as Tupac Hualpa II, with his ADM 7, is exactly what we've been looking for.



(The picture is a bit wrong - the base tax bonus actually goes to Yopitzinco as the province is random)

That Western Influences modifier isn't as big a deal as you'd expect because our high-Admin ruler gets rid of the Overextension modifier (that has the same stab cost effect).

The technology boost immediately gets us to Government tech 16.



The availability of Noble Republic means that, should this Sapa Inca die before we're done with westernizing, we can change to a republic and go for an administrative candidate.

Another thing that comes with westernization - and this is going to take a while - maps!

* * *

British Isles:



...right. I said earlier in the comments that this area might be a mess, but this certainly isn't what I expected. Geneve is holding most of England and seems to be beating a pretty strong Scotland in a war. England only has scattered holdings. This looks like the work of religious rebels - Geneve has expanded very little outside its starting province on the mainland, but for some reason most English provinces defected to them. CORRECTION: England (Anglois) and Geneve (Arpitan) have the same culture group, so an English collapse has given the otherwise tiny nation a good number of provinces on the island far from their homeland.

Wales holds Wales and Cornwall, while Ireland is almost unified.

Iberia and Northern Africa



A strong united Spain is the most obvious feature. Seems that they've take a province off Portugal as well. Spain has the Canarias while Portugal controls Madeira.

Fez is holding most of the west part of Northern Africa, with only smaller tribes holding on for life remaining.

One of my favorites, Mallorca, seems to have a small number of provinces over the Pyrenees and in southwestern France in addition to their islands. Good enough work to get to around ten provinces and win some French wars for a nation that isn't even independent at game start. They obviously took advantage of Aragon's fall.

Northern Italian minors are also visible in this shot.

Italy, Balkans, Anatolia



A strong Tuscany dominates the central part of Italy, with smaller nations in the north and Naples and Sicily duking it out in the south.

Speaking of Naples, they have a strong presence in northern Greece. The south is dominated by Spain (why does this remind me of vanilla HTTT? )

The Ottoman Empire dominates Anatolia and has some Balkan holdings. In addition to various smaller Turkish tribes, there are remnants of Basileia ton Romaion on the islands as well as between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

Interestingly, Montenegro seems to be doing a good job on what the large powers have left alone in the Balkans. First time I've seen that, vanilla or MEIOU.

Central Europe



Umm... Where to begin? France looks to be big and in large part unified, but, well, it's also completely under occupation. We'll see what comes out of this.

After Brittany and Normandy in the west, a remarkably strong Netherlands holds the northern coast all the way to Denmark.

East of them, Brandenburg has grown somewhat and is the only serious German power in the north. Bohemia and especially Poland have expanded, and that includes into German land.

Austria seems to have concentrated on grabbing the Adriatic coast and heading east to the northern Balkans. A funny shaped Hungary is reasonably sized.

Bavaria has unified (doesn't start that way) and is fighting with a Switzerland that has pulled off a remarkable expansion. Looks like Bavaria is doing well in this war, but the Swiss won their previous one, so we'll see. You know who I'm pulling for.

The Mamluks

I'll just categorize like that because, well, they're pretty big.



In addition to their start in Egypt and the Levant, the Mamluks hold parts of Northern Africa as well as most of Mesopotamia.



And make that pretty much both Egypts, and a sizable chunk of Arabia. And Socotra to boot.

Ethiopia has been pushed south, they're pushing other nations to compensate.

Persia etc.



A very strong Timurid Empire dominates this area.

The Muzaffarids hold the southern parts of Persia, as well as eastern Mesopotamia and a strip from there to as far north as southern Azerbaijan, actually bordering the Romans.

Most of non-Mamluk Arabia is in Hedjaz hands.

India



Bahmani is the big power here, with Bihar in the north a secondary force. All in all, the subcontinent has been consolidated nicely.

I can only see scattered provinces in other areas (Russia, Scandinavia, Southeast Asia, China), so those shall wait until more is visible. One thing that I can note is that Chagatai's name over the terra incognita is frickin' huge.

* * *

So, there's most of the relevant outside world. Any thoughts?

[Zzzzz...]

that Mamluk is HUGE

[morningSIDEr]

Very interesting how the world has turned out, worrying to see Scotland is still surviving, hopefully though they can be conquered quickly so as to save the world from their idiocy. Apart from that the main things which catch my eye are the large Netherlands and The Mamluks prospering whilst the Ottomans seem to be struggling, which is quite a surprise to me. Unfortunate too that a Swiss province seems to be under occupation by Austria (or is that Bavaria or someone else?), hopefully the doughty Swiss can hang in there.

[MannheimCouncil]

Looks interesting. Geneva in Britain is not very surprising, especially considering you're not playing an earlier version. Same goes for the French implosion after partial unification. It is good to see Poland, Brandenburg, Bohemia and Austria expanding without biting down hard on each other. Looks like an interesting game. My guess is you'll be worrying about Spain mostly, but who knows Naples, Tuscany, Fez and even Geneva are in a position to threaten you, should the AI decide to go a-colonizing.

[Enewald]

I just love bloodshed.
I do not bath in blood. Nor do I drink it.
I just started playing WAR.

EPIC EUROPE!

[blsteen]

Very interesting...
that is a strong looking spain, mallorca will have its hands full; Netherlands and Mamluks have blobbed quite well
Time for a boat..nay a ship?

[aldriq]

Most of Europe is in a bit of a royal mess Watch out for those pesky Dutch and Spaniards, they might make it to North/Central America in no time...

[Axe27]

Surprised the Tumird Empire didn't collapse into a million pieces. In later patches of HTTT they seemed have less collapsing. In DW though, they normally don't even make it out of the 1400s.

[FinnishFish]

What the ..... Europe is in mess you gotta clean it up