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EDIT:
It was not originally intended that this game be an AAR. I was inspired by PrawnStar's Iroquois AAR to give it a go and this thread was first posted in the normal EUIII forum just asking for some advice. It then turned into an AAR from there. During this time my first child was born, so the updates are not perfect and some times the narrative style slips! Please forgive me! Anyway this is my first game on very hard and my first AAR. Please note that as i didn't start this game with an AAR in mind the first few years (150 or so) are missing from the story and the first few posts are not recognisable as an ordinary AAR.

Contents:

Two wars down. First semi AAR post.
Chapter one War, War and more War.
Chapter two No rst for the wicked.
Chapter four We fight, it's what we do.
Chapter five To do a bad, bad thing? and So what to do...
Chapter six Get out of my front yard!
Chapter seven You came, you saw, I conquerred!
Chapter nine The war of a hundread small naval battles.
Chapter ten Peace but for how long?
Chapter eleven New year review
Chapter twelve A Long peace but with a terrible end.
Aside: Alaina mae
Chapter thirteen Goliath stumbles!
Chapter fiftenn Peace? Erm... what do we do with that? Answers on a postcard to.... and hmmmm an opportuinty...
Chapter sixteen War Without End Pt.6
chapter seventeen War in the south continues. and dragging on.
Chapter eighteen Long and short wars and the problem with colony grabbing!
Chapter nineteen Peace... Raiding the piggy bank and threats to the gold!
Chapter twenty War without end Pt.7
Chapter twenty one War, huh, what is it good for? and The Execution.
Chapter twenty two A long awaited peace!
Chapter Twenty three An annoyance...
Chapter Twenty four To bleed the mighty...
Chapter Twenty five Incan troubles And The War Without End Pt. 8
Chapter Twenty Six A peace...
Vote World conquest or steady as she goes?
Chapter Twenty Seven A spiral within a spiral, a wheel within a wheel
Chapter Twenty Eight To Bridge Two Continents
Chapter Twenty Nine A descent into momentary chaos
Chapter Thirty To fight on the green fields of Europe.
Chapter Thirty one The End of an Era
Chapter Thirty two A Short Peace Please!
Chapter Thirty three A couple of short wars and a shocking realisation.

Ok so haivng been inspired by Prawnstar's Iroquois AAR I decided this could be my first very hard game lol.. This way I wouldn't feel too bad about dying so quick..

After a few false starts (I never knew the Huron could be so strong!) I have arrived in 1567...

I have fully westernized to the Latin Tech group, I have latin units and I am also a nobel republic!

I fought one war with portugal, back when I was land tech 7 and only held to a white peace after I burnt her colony which gave us some borders.

I have colonized north to secure a sea port and have 5 traders in ming (Which is worth only 240 gold in total! and a monopoly in Mohawk (total worth 260 ish which I'm get 170ish)

Spain, France and Portugal are allied and are big problems...

Spain is currently in a war against Great Britain, Scotland, Austria, Bohemia. i don't think it is going well.. all her colonies in North america (the ones not over 1000) are in decline and the ones I share a border with have only 7 men left and are losing 25 a year. if the war goes on, I'll lose my border with Spain.

Here's North America

newworld.jpg


A bit closer and my tech/economy:
tech.jpg


I'm one level behind Portugal on Land Tech and I'm 3 behind Spain. My land maintance is on it's lowest setting...

Nat Ideas are colonial ventures, military drill and the 50% more manpower one...

So do I colonize the provs that Spain loses, or do i colonize the empty spaces which wont give me european borders?

I have level 2 forts but only in two provs; and not much money... should I concentrate on buildig gforts, then workshops, then colonize or split my money over both? I'm thinking mostly to build forts in likely european borders only then colonise with the occasionaly workshop here and there...

Or do I focus on building regimental camps to up my appauling manpower (200 gold each for 25% prov manpower)?

Also should I auto send merchants to Ming until I've got a monopoly and ousted most of the others trading there the CoT is only valued at like 250 and each tradee costs over 10 ducats?

Here's the whole world for a quick view:
wholeworld.jpg


It's hard to see but Austia is huge as is Bohemia and Sweden. Something bad happened to France though and Burgundy and Britain both still have provs there. Ireland has a colony in the new world too..

Please any advice would be awesome!

Seriously i've been lucky and played hard to get this far but now I feel my next decision will be the most important!
 
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Depending on how strong Castille is, I would honestly attack them if they are already engaged in wars ect.

You've already westernized, and reformed military so there's really no reason to be afraid of them. 3 steps behind in land tech is peanuts.

If you feel like they are weak enough, declare war, sieze all their colonies, and colonize them yourself so they have your culture, and will be more fruitful in the future. If you don't do it while they are colonies, it will take a huge global war to hurt them bad enough to actually cede anything in a peace deal. And they will be wrong religion, wrong culture provinces, if you don't do it before they reach city status (you will need to send an additional colonist to change this, while it is still a colony).

in my Makassar -> Malaya game i did not let any european nations colonize in the east indies or it was war. I also had an uber fleet to help out, but you could do the same. I seriously doubt this early in your game that castille will send any kind of serious force to the new world.
 
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Spain (Castile has become spain) is way too strong... I have only 15k troops she has so many more! She has 5 cities already in the states but 8 colonies which are slowly dying. I thought this meant she must be out of cash and losing her wars so I cheated a little and loaded the game as Spain to see how it was going...

Well why she isn't funding her colonies I've no clue she has 11k ducats saved up and is wining all her wars. she also has 45000 troops in North America. I can not see how I can possible survive any war with Spain.. maybe with portugal if I'm lucky... but wihtout cash to stir up rebelions I don't think I stand a chance against either now... :( I have given military access to spain, so as to get either warning of an attack or give her that huge stab hit, I'm also over 100 in relations with her, so if she doesn't cancel the access and insult me before declaring war she'll be down to -3 stab and hopefully rebellions in North Africa may slow her a little...

Either way I don't think I can last much longer!
 
Use spies to incite natives in her colonies then grab them as they are destroyed, before Spain can recolonize them.
 
ah ha!!! Awesome idea!!

I've also noticed that if I don't have any land borders the AI makes peace for very little, even merely conceeding defeat.. (who cares about 5 prestige right now?) If I hold costal territory am I likely to be able to do that?
 
yea colony grab then turtle it out, and hope to end the war by conceding defeat or white peace. Keep in mind that conceding defeat lowers your legitimacy as well, so I wouldn't do it too much.

I wouldn't have expected them to have so many troops in north america that early. Its kind of a problem, perhaps picking on portugal or someone else to try and get bigger would be a better option. Picking the right time is just as important as building up correctly. If you can declare war when they already have high war exhaustion ect. you will be much more likely to colony grab and peace out, without getting yourself killed.
 
I have fully westernized to the Latin Tech group, I have latin units and I am also a nobel republic!

yea colony grab then turtle it out, and hope to end the war by conceding defeat or white peace. Keep in mind that conceding defeat lowers your legitimacy as well, so I wouldn't do it too much.
I don't think that legitimacy is a concern when gov't type is a republic. I could be wrong...
 
Some quick thoughts.

The way I see it you have an opportunity to hurt Spain by either burning out or seizing those colonies - take it. The only genuine security will come once North America is yours and your fleet is big enough to drive other people away.

Trade - try Japan as well.

Build forts otherwise it could get messy fast.
 
two wars down...

Ok so I waited about a year so that my Lan dtech came up a level and decided to burn out Spain! Hurrah!

I seized the colonies that would not leave me with a border with Spain and burnt the rest.

Things were going well I had sieges in all her cities and two of them complete and she had no forces left... She happily marched about 10k to their doom 1000 at a time into my army holding mostly mountainous terrain, so nice to watch them immediately die! Then Portugal decided to declare war...

My war score with Spain got all the way to 29% and I was hoping I could white out or better still get some money. However Portugal had troops in my newly seized colonies (Manhattan, Connecticutt, Mass and Narraganset) and so I had to respond.

Also peaceing out would mean my troops were not neighbouring Portugal's native possesions in the south, I saw a couple of stacks of just under 10k there, no way to fight them and the 10-16k portugal was landing piecemeal in the north!

Sadly Spain would only accept peace if I conceeded defeat, very annoying as I was so close to that magic 40% mark... If I could have stab hit her down to -3 I think her other wars would start to go wrong and alot of my problems would be eased.

I destroyed Portugals armies in the North and peace out the moment she'd accept a conceed defeat.

As my army is only about 12-15k strong I don't think I could leave 4-5k up north and take an effective force south into the old native lands.. most of which are still TI... (come on spreading!!!) Considering Portugal has 16 transports I could not stop a force that size without my whole army...

So I'm at peace again, Spain and Portugal are both still in their other wars which sadly means my truce will run out before their does...

On Peace Portugal immediately sent a colonist to Pennacook. I hope the truce is up before it becomes a city so I can burn it.

So here's the map:

1572.jpg


You can see my economy is straining.

I have only 3 lvl 2 forts, Mohawk, Onondaga and Ottawa (built by an event thanks!) I now have six colonies (I sent one to Mahican so I could send others to the New England colonies) and that is far more than I can support. Also a forth NI slot opened so I took national bank to get some minting to help, I have 3 low level Masters of the Mint and inflation is steady at 0.3 I had to do soem minting early in the war with Spain, before National Bank kicked in.

so there's the problem.. I need to build at leaset four forts (Seneca, Cayga, Coneida, Ontario) that's the best part of 400 ducats. Or 40 years at current spending. (Military maintance is down to min.)

Trade choices seem mixed too:

EU3_5.jpg


I'm thinking Crimea (cheaper to send traders but expensive to open) or Bihar (expensive to send traders but cheaper to open)

PrawnStar: Japan is still TI :(

I'm thinking that my best bet may be to ditch colonial maintance completely, concentrate on the forts and then think about investing on opening markets... the other Indian and far eastern markets could be cheap to open too, but they are small 150-250 max.. sigh

I do actually have a 75% compete chance in both european markets which I think are still open to me, Andalucia and Lisboa, this is probably my only chance to improve my income in the short term without major investment.

I have one light ship patrolling Mosse Cree to keep pirates away and my international trade alive, how I was allowed to build it i do not know as it will be 1603 before I get a core there.

My plan is to build the forts, maybe send some merchants to the old world if you guys think that's a good idea, and pray.

Should I mint more heavily to get the forts and then scale it back once they are built?

Thoughts would be grand!

Edit: Perhaps this should be an AAR... :)
 
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I don't mind minting a little extra in the early game if it means getting some critical improvements online or upgrading the army/navy for an imminent war. Later in the game its not hard at all to start burning off inflation, so as long as you stay under 10% or so, its not bad at all.

Really its pretty good strategy to rack up 2% or more inflation early in the game, because once you start moving your sliders towards free subjects, you will likely get an event or two giving you -2% inflation, so you could easily burn off 4% for free, just for moving your sliders correctly.
 
War war and more War

Ok so I opt to mint to get those level 2 forts...
I also invest in Lisboa Cot establishing a monoploy there.. kind helps the money and colonial maint is set to 50% no grow no decline... i need them complete soon!
Invest all magistrates in culture to get better masters of mint, currently 3 level 3.
All goes well until the wars start:

1575

sweden.jpg


With 14 Transports this worries me, but oddly no units turn up, eventually Sweden allows peace for conceeded defeat.

and no sooner said than done
1578

bur.jpg


With fewer transports I fear her less but she does turn up and with a large force, she must have added transports, or the really can fly fast.

She threatens Moose Cree which I'd forgotten to fortify to level 2... i take the risk and start it at once and it gets completed. Eventually she stops sending units and eventually allows a conceeded defeat peace.

(my poor prestige, why do i get hit for conceeding defeat, no money, and no land when fighting people 18000 times bigger than me?)

Almost imediately GB colonises the prov north of my only, as yet uncored, port. A DoW followed... sigh..

gb.jpg


Yep that's right that's how big Britainia is... makes me feel a little sad inside (I'm British) I think I could even counquer her, If I had some transports.

I sieze her colony and peace out on a conceeded defeat, trying to keep my WE down!

I seriously need someone to explain how that goes up and down!

There is a brief war with France, who are having as badder game as Britain are, I burn her colony to the east of Moose Creek, (I have too many as it is) and before I 'conceed defeat' the dreaded happens..

Portugal declared war!

In my excitement I forgot to grab a screen grab.

The fighting was hard and tough, The first Portuguese Doomstack marched into Mohawk, 11k cav 20k inf 2k art on my level two fort. I'd scorched the earth so I sat my stack, 4k cav 12k, my other units are up at moose cree incase portugal try to flank, I should have known better. so I'm waiting for attrician and then maybe a failed assult before attacking.

The Portugesse would not oblige, a little attriction later she assults the walls and wins :( I'm gutted as she siezes the prov... no conceed defeat peace this time.

I've raised her colonies that bought us into contact, but now I have to kill that doomstack. She moves on to Ontario which is another level two and I finally unite my whole army in Mohawk. I quick assult the 100 troops holding the fort and as expected the doomstack turns to attack me... ok.

She is using Terico Infantry, like me, good all round, but my cav is the next unit after Chev and she is using latin knights anyway.

A long hard fight, which I win! hurrah! Dropping my artillery I move my stack with my manouver 4 general to incept her at the next prov. I win again inflicting huge damage but not killing it. So where does she retreat into? Well into Spainish Territory of course.. :(

the fight continues in New England for several years, that first doomstack came out of hiding into manhattan and I managed to defeat it again, I overtake it and destory it in conn. I split my army sending 1cav 2 inf 1 art to Ohio to start taking the war to them. I also take Portugals only new england city.

Then doomstack two marches into new England and I have to regroup, this one manges to take Ontario and Onedia both level 2, before being defeated... This has to stop or all is lost.

Leaving just 1 cav and 3 inf in new england, I march into the south.

Another doomstack to kill there, which is almost too easy now and the slow siege of it all starts, but hope against hope, my warscore is 40% HURRAH!!

A few deals, asking for my homelands back later, and Portugal is at -3 stability and I'm doing support rebels as often as I can afford and have spies for. My gosh infiltrate admin is useful.

So then eventually I wear her down and take every north american prov. My WE is now huge.

The best peace I can manage is this

peace1595.jpg


But I'm not sure what to do here. I'd need two more colonies to connect my lands with Wea, Ohio, Kentucky, cumberland and with Abnaki, and 15 infamy on a limit of 20 will kill trade. Sadly I can't force release the old nations, the portugesse have converted all of them. Also with full innovative I have - 1 missionary... so no converting them for me for a very long time!

I'm thinking of just takign my provs back and abnaki, forcing her out of New england, but leaving the south. This minimimizes the revolts I'll have to deal with and the number of colonies I need. prestiege will be high so I'll be uping culture to get even better Masters of mints. and then pressing on with those colonies. But this route doesn't hurt Portugal that much.

I also think i'll hold on till Jan for more money!

Any ideas?

I also have a core on a Spainish colony, Susquenhanna, from a border dispute. These colonies will soon be cities but there's no way I can fight Spain right now. As she is at peace!

here's my mess of an economy..

new2.jpg


And the war with Port almost 10 years now:
port.jpg


and europe 1593

euro1593.jpg
 
Moved to AAR forum upon author's request
 
Some thoughts - no particular order but I'm having a bad day :(

Your inflation is not an issue at 1.7. Take the pain, mint and build your colonies up. Once you get the number down your economic situation will improve but without colonisation you'll be locked in endless wars against Europen invaders. They'll white peace out if in time if you don't share a border.

Your war exhaustion is driven by attrition - pay very careful attention to the support limits of the provinces you have troops in. Uncolonised provinces are killers. You should be able to keep war exhaustion down if you aren't actively fighting. When you make peace make sure your troops have ben pulled back into your territory.

Abnaki will get you into a war with Ireland - I'm guessing but that should be winnable.

The big question - simple take the land - you won't get many chances to hurt Portugal that much. Use the money to expand colonies you need to get that done and then start on connecting to the ex-Shawnee lands and filling some of the coast up.
 
How long can you hope and hold your breath?

Firstly a Disclaimer:

I'm new to AAR's and to playing on Very Hard difficulty setting, this AAR is for me to learn in possibly one of the hardest start condition I can! I know I know I should have pick England or Spain for my first Very Hard game huh?

Also for some reason I only have a few of the screen shots I took. So the AAR may get a little text based for a while! Sorry.

The nation had been at war with the perfidious Portugesse for almost ten long years and the end was finally in sight. The First Spainish War had left the Iroqouis with large numbers of colonial, sea front provinces in New England. Far more than her ecconomy can handle. To solve this problem the Great War Leader Teiorhunhsere Deyodeshot declared Connecticut the new focus for our nation.

This is risky, the provenice is at 10 population as there was no money for maintaince in wartime, but this meant a double bonus of colonial growth! To pay for this the Minters were giving a green light to go ahead.

By Jan 1595 The victorious armies of the Iroquois had returned to what would soon become their land and peace was arranged with the desperate Portugesse.

peacejan1595.jpg


The council deceided that the nation should Improve the Defences in our new territory of Cumberland. This was wise given that all the ex Portugesse territory are cores... Another war is always around the corner however, more pressing forts were needed,next to the Spainish.

Instead the battle worn veterans turned then to building a larger army, one more akin to their enlarged support limit, and armies of 1 cav and 2 infantry were sent to the rebellious portugesse provs, to hold Moose Cree and Sit on Conn untill she was built up to full a city. A 100 growth a year and as many colonists as could be spared: this was going to be a race.

Magistrates and Prestige were burned for better culture, the need for better Minters is obvious. and Prestige is only going to get lost in wars and revolts which sieze my colonies.

Efforts were made to colonise Pennacook, to connect up the then new Portugesse holding of Abnaki which in turn inceased work on improving its fortifications.

In celebration the Portugesse scum in Cumberland revolted

All the other colonists were then sent to Connecticut to change its status to city asap to protect the national focus.

In the next noble election the nation kept Deyodeshot an 7/8/5 leader, the 8 bonus for infamy is required to avoid dishournable scum!

Just 4 months of peace before:

burdow1595.jpg


Did they not learn last time!

Very little happens to begin with and in July the Iroquois gained claims on their rivals, a core on Irish Kespek and Portugesse Cahatria.

The first Burgundian units arrive in New England, 1000 cav instantly put down and then 3000 artillery all on thier own: This was not going to be a difficult war!

In October the Irish responded to our claims with a warning, The nation trembled in fear once they had stopped laughing. The people responded by setting up a colonial company in Kwedech, which was nice but put even more strain on the public purse.

A second Burgundian Army arrived in Mass 1 cav 2 infantry and 3 art. This army bounced 4 times before being killed by the 3 cav 9 infantry Iroquois army which repeatedly overtook the Burgundian retreats... Cheats... :(

Abitbi cores and finally after some money and many requests the Scottish gave us military access, and an expeditionary force was sent out from Moose Cree to destory the Burgundian Colonies of Labraddor and Innu.

On a side note the Pope then excommunicated the Irish, which seemed rather ammusing!

The discovery that a member of the Iroquois council was acting under the influence of a rival nation sents shock waves through the country and stability dropped. This was a real mistake for Deyodeshot, all those catholic, portugesse provinces meant the days of cheap stability were long over, as did the fully innovative, plultarchy and free subjects way of life the Iroquois enjoyed. It would take three years of a stuggling ecconomy to get back to normal.

At this point the nation conceeded defeat to the Burgundians for peace. The enemies WE was high, but the effective blockade made the reduced ecconomy even worse.

bureow1597.jpg


The Irouquois had destoryed some 37 regiments so far for the loss of none, but not even a white peace could be arranged.

One of the Iroquis Generals retired to the skies but a new replacement hopeful rose to maturity (3/3/4/2). The nation looked inward and had now fought many defensive wars, it was time change and to start to grow.

The Reconquest of Kespek was ordered.

Wea revolted in celebration at the news and the Milianese came to their allies aid!

Sadly Micmac had just grown to a city, but Arcadia was a 900 population colony. The Army which had stuck down the Burdungian colonies had not yet even returned to Moose cree and turned around to march upon Irish Taqamkuk, if they could cross the Innu straights. Kespek was sieged and Micmac and Arcadia ware taken. However the Irish fleet blocked the Armies crossing into Epekwitk and Unanmakik. Eventually a bright idea occured to the Native's general and he withdrew from Arcadia, this drew out the Irish and enabled them to be destoryed! With no troops in the new world the Irish fleet returns home to get more and Iroquois armies take the risk and siege Epekwitk and Unamakik. While still under siege the Irish agreed to peace ceeding Kespek. The grey emminence behind the Iroquois was so excited he forgot to see if they would thow in some gold!

Arcadia had been siezed and a single colonist sent: which completed it to a city and converted the culture and religeon! But of course it was cut off from the mainland, and with peace none of the armies (including all the Iroquois artillery) could march back to the main heartlands: a small fleet was ordered to be built in Kespek...

The Iroquois Navy had been founded.

In 1600 the Portugesse again stirred trouble in a boundry despute and it was found that the Iroquois had claims to Pennyrile.

Moose Cree cored and more ships were ordered!

New England started to show signs of worry, Connecticutt became a city was was fortified to level two, but it was then noticed that Manhatten, Machin, Mass and Nag would all become cites at once!!! and needed fort nursing or they could be siezed by occupying Christians! The Milanese were therefore allowed to sieze all four colonies to slow down their growth. This was a good idea but drove WE up ALOT.

Allengheny was next to become city and was fortifited, this was done to enable colonists to reach Erie before the Spainish could get there. Milian would peace out for a conceeded defeat, but the Iroquois knew they were close to the point where they could ruin that nations stability with peace offers and decided to press on. During these wars Manhatten and Machin became cites and were fortified.

However the magic 40% number did not arrive, the War score remained at 36% despite massive losses for the Millianese. WE is now so high even Iroquois provs are revolting. The war had dragged on so long now (9 years). And the Iroquois needed peace, but after such a struggle admitting defeat would have tasted awful.

1607millan.jpg


The Iroquois decided to move away from innovative which again lowered their Stability, this was to move toward gaining missionaries and was probably a mistake, tolerence of heathens could be their next NI and courthouses could now be built to control revolt risk.

The problem on their minds was whether to conceed defeat to the milianese despite having destroyed over 100 regiments!

Spain was also in a war with Burgundy, and had been for awhile, the Iroquois should take advantage, but they need their WE down first!

The plan was almost certain: agree to peace on humiliating terms, as a 40% war score may not be possible without occupying land and prepare for war with Spain to gain our core Susquenhennay, sieze/complete/fotifiy Lenape, burnout Kanawki and Manahoac and see what else we can get from the Spainish. I deliberately let Susquenhennay become a city, despite my having a core on it. As taking it should make Spainish an accepted culture!!
 
Maps!
 
Interesting. You're slowly taking over North America. Iroquois is surely a hard country to play, but hopefully you'll become a world power (or even THE world power :D) by 1820!

I'll be following :)