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I guess Judea? I can't get at him (except his vassal Sidon) without Russia or one of the Europeans, and he cant get at me without reinforcements.

I can get at you without reinforcements easily. The only thing that held Croatia back in that session was the fact that the GM and host refused to rehost when the actual Croat player crashed.
 
I can get at you without reinforcements easily. The only thing that held Croatia back in that session was the fact that the GM and host refused to rehost when the actual Croat player crashed.

There was no difference in your playing, your second player showed no noticeable lack of tactical acumen in comparison to yourself. After my troops arrived you seemed to mostly sit your stacks on lands I had burned, glaring angrily at my blocking forces. I'm not sure what you would suddenly have done different from him that would have saved your expedition? After my crushing victories he managed to get all regiments back home safely, eluding my attempts at stack-wiping, so he's not an incompetent.

But instead of dithering about that, what do you want? Is it still your initial offer of Anatolia for 4000 gold and helping me eat Punjab?
 
There was no difference in your playing, your second player showed no noticeable lack of tactical acumen in comparison to yourself. After my troops arrived you seemed to mostly sit your stacks on lands I had burned, glaring angrily at my blocking forces. I'm not sure what you would suddenly have done different from him that would have saved your expedition? After my crushing victories he managed to get all regiments back home safely, eluding my attempts at stack-wiping, so he's not an incompetent.

But instead of dithering about that, what do you want? Is it still your initial offer of Anatolia for 4000 gold and helping me eat Punjab?

What part of "I can not actually tell my forces to go anywhere because of lag" don't you understand? I was able to move maybe one stack per couple of days.

And yes.
 
So this may be drifting away from discussing the AAR, but let me offer a couple of comments: OY is in Croatia as an observer, because he is away from home and thus lags very badly. It is not intended that he shall give orders in wartime; it was the primary Croatian player who crashed, not OY.

As for refusing to rehost, I for one was not in fact aware that anyone had crashed, much less an active belligerent; I apologise for that. TS was very confused at the time and I was fighting a losing campaign against well-handled Persian troops. My propaganda aside, let me note that the 30 regiments you see in the screenie of the battle at Tyumen were, first, my entire army at the time, and second, all that was left of 60 peacetime regiments, all of which had survived the Indian campaign. (Concentration of force at the decisive point for the win; I keep relearning this lesson. I thought I had a loose and flexible formation that would allow me to reinforce any part of it that was attacked; it turned out I had an invitation for Frosty to defeat me in detail and stackwipe literally half my army. Live and learn.) Let's just say that I was quite happy to see Frosty pull out one of his 12000-strong divisions to put out a fire elsewhere, and go into a defensive stance on the steppe front. This may still turn out to be a mistake on his part; as you can see in the stats, I have rebuilt my army. But at the time it was a great relief.

Finally, I wonder if it may be the case that Dano did not receive a notification that the Croatian player had crashed, since as far as the game was concerned, there were two players in Croatia.
 
For what its worth I didn't hear about this until 15 minutes prior to session end.
 
Hmm. I find it interesting that Tibet is apparently the most advanced nation, as measured in number of provinces with 12 buildings. Comes of being peaceful and building infrastructure, probably.
 
Oh mighty Tibet. Expansion is overrated in DW. But not in Victoria 2. You're going to need population. Maybe having Southern China will be enough to industrialize and muster forces, but the Euros hate Chinese players, so you're going to need good defensive alliances.
 
Nu, but buildings affect the amount of population the converter gives you. Specifically, one-half the Vicky population is redistributed proportional to a province weight given by this formula:

(manpower*units)*(1-0.9*foreignOccupationFraction)*(1-0.5*badReligionFraction)*product(buildingWeights), where

  • manpower is the integer number in the savegame, not what's reported ingame
  • units is min(0.99 + 0.00001*citysize, 2.0) + 0.05*base_tax
  • foreignOccupationFraction is the fraction of game time the province has been occupied by anyone other than the owner
  • badReligionFraction is the fraction of game time the province has had a non-state religion
  • For each building, the building weight is the fraction of game time since the default invention of the building that the province has had that building, to a maximum of 1.5 (for those provinces where the building existed before the default invention), times sqrt(cost in ducats / 1000), plus 1, times the cost in magistrates, to a maximum of ten.
 
A Few Notes on culture in Europe and the Near East during the 1400s, with a focus on Iberia

During the Late Middle Ages, throughout Europe, there is evidence of cultural aggregation. In the Early Middle Ages (500-1000), the Migration Period (400-700) and the disintegration of long-distance communication, previously facilitated by the original Roman Empire, cultural fragmentation occurred on a massive scale in Europe. This process was halted in the High Middle Ages (1000-1300), when relatively stable and longer-ranged feudal entities arose. Even so, the High Middle Ages were the scene of a great many upheavals; witness the demise of Poland as a political entity (1247); the strife over the Levant, variously Byzantine, Fatimid and Persian; the rise of Croatia; the steady decline and final eclipse of the Western Roman Empire and its successor states, with its centre of power variously in Germany, Toulouse and Italy; the exile of Welsh royalty to Finland (1140) and its triumphal return (1308).

Yet, stable centres of power existed, halting the advance of fragmentation and even exporting their ways and language to those areas most susceptible to their use. It was not until the Late Middle Ages, however, that the stable entities of the 14th and 15th century emerged. A key event in achieving this must have been the fall of the decrepit Holy Roman Empire, precariously balanced in the middle of Europe, to younger, more vigorous nations like the Fatimid Caliphate, Croatia, Bavaria and Al-Andalus. With the acquiescence of the Finno-Welsh lords of the British Isles and the absorption of the moribund realm of Loire the conditions for a stable Western Europe were created.

The English nation, the melting-pot of Germanic migrations, Celtic indigious peoples and Scandinavian and Finnish conquerors, lies insulated by the sea. In the center is the Germanic nation of Bavaria, insulated by divided Frankish lands in the west, Polish buffer states in the east and divided Italy to the south. To the southeast is the Slavic state of Croatia, insulated by divided Italy and itself insulation from Europe for the Eastern giant, the Russian state of Novgorod. To the Southeast is the nation of Catalunya, another melting-pot. It is this melting-pot that is our main subject.

Iberia was the scene of the formation of an Andalusian centre of power. From a small Moorish emirate it expanded, under the aegis of the Fatimid caliphate at first, but on its own later on. The Deconquista of Iberia was not a process of conquest, but mainly one of assimilation. The Andalusian nation expanded its southern power base mainly through cultural integration of the smaller entities it bordered and brought under its wing. Iberia was a land more fragmented than most; all three major Abrahamic religions had a significant following, the Migrations and the following Moorish invasion on top of indigenous Celtic and Basque peoples themselves diluted by Phoenician and Roman influences made Iberia the most diverse area of Europe around the year 1000: Celtic, Basque, Semitic, Latin and Germanic - there was no way for a Moorish minority to structurally dominate so diverse a collection. Instead, through political darwinism or through luck, around 1200 an entity arose that thrived through assimilation of the best features of every constituent part. That entity, known through various ages as Toledo, Al-Andalus, Asturias, León and Catalunya slowly absorbed all others. Historians termed the resulting culture 'andalusian', yet that is something of a misnomer: while the process assimilation did indeed begin in Andalusia, a southern dominance culture-wise should not be assumed.

From the Moorish beginnings, the principles of science and tolerance were inherited, which was also a major force in shaping the religion of the area (see also this article). From the Castilian and Catalan peoples, the Romance language and alphabet were inherited, as well as a European instead of an African tendency. From the Galicians and Portuguese, the focus on the great wide sea and its treasures. From the Germanic migrants came the concept of personal freedom. From the Basque people, though isolated and not numerous, perhaps the greatest: a fundamental curiosity and sense of adventure, the will to explore across the wide oceans.

With the gradual shifting of the seat of power northward, the entity become known as Catalunya, after the land in which its capital sat: edge of the Reconquista, once Roman, Greek, Phoenician: a true centre of this hybrid nation, which is still expanding: lately, American and Frankish lands have entered its sphere. No doubt their distinctiveness will be added to the collective.

AAR reward:
3 colonists
 
This session's AAR: is a true after-action report: the War of the African League!

It's not that exciting though, because I didn't take any screenshots. In future wars I will try to take some screenshots for AAR purposes; in this war, I was too occupied with other things. You will have to imagine the battles. Or skip the wall of text. Whichever suits you.

Diplomatic things during the war (innumerable Gujarati surrenders and unsurrenders, Qin reportedly continuing to attack allies after peace was agreed on for *real* real, peace terms, and such) not covered. Gujarat stayed in the fight for a good three or four years after it was lost, and we had to grind it out and occupy much of his country; not sure that was beneficial to him, since it has caused him to have no army and tons of WE and rebels.

The War of the African League

So, of old (several sessions ago) there were friendly relations between Gujarat and Punjab on the one hand, and Ethiopia on the other. I helped Gujarat expand in South India, we both helped Punjab control his rebels when he was being overrun by tens of thousands of rebels and the player was semi-ghosted. We didn't talk all that much and Gujarat and Ethiopia signed no NAPs or other such formal agreements, but things were cordial.

Things soured on my end due to Bengal. Ethiopia had publically guaranteed the independence of Bengal; during session, Bengal also sought protection from Croatia, an ally of the Ethiopian state. However Gujarat and Punjab took offense, warning Croatia to withdraw its protection over Bengal or else. I publically stated my alliance with Croatia and that in case of "or else" I would honor it; they ignored this and maintained their demands. Wasn't happy about that at all. I wanted to preserve Bengal and it didn't look like they were on board with that; I also didn't like them threatening my ally. So, plotting time. And once I started plotting against Gujarat, I also started thinking how nicely their Tamil provinces would complement a few Tamil-culture islands I'd picked up from the wreck of Ceylon, the former South Indian player slot which lost most of its lands to Gujarat.

Plotting involved getting my two African neighbors on board, as well as Catalunya, which owed me a couple favors. I suppose they still do, assuming they make it out with the agreed-on provs, since they will end up gaining pretty well from this war. Spain brought in England, something I didn't know was happening until mid-session. Malaya and Qin were the major naval powers of Asia at that point (it is currently Malaya and Japan). I already had NAP with Malaya for other reasons, and I got one with Qin for the purpose of keeping him out of the Indian war, since I intended to be warleader. The Bengali player was absent, and getting mil-access from an AI'd player to attack another would have been cheesy - even though he might well have wanted to join the party were he around, and get back the land Gujarat took from Bengal in their last war. So, naval supremacy in order to launch an amphibious assault was necessary. Thus NAP with Qin.

We waited about ten years into the session to DOW; Ethiopian troops would have been ready a bit earlier, since I maintain a pretty large peacetime army due to security needs (at least by ROTW standards; I'm sure vR and his quarter-million screaming Russians would disagree), but allies needed some time and money to build up sufficient armies and the fleets to move them. Ethiopia currently has a much larger census tax than the other Africans, so we spread some gifts around to Kongo and Tripoli to help cover costs. Once D-day approached 66 Ethiopian regiments were moved to the islands off the Indian coast and 22 regiments were sent to the Punjabi border in Arabia in case they intervened (which they did). 82 Ethiopian regiments in all were committed to the war. I believe the commitments of the other powers averaged about 40 regiments, some higher, some lower. We were facing about 70 Gujarati regiments, 70-80 Punjabi regiments, and 50-60 Mongol regiments by my best guess, for a total of about 250 regiments against 200 regiments. Qin later joined on Gujarat's side and Persia attacked Punjab, which was a net gain in numbers for us, but I don't know by how much.

Immediately after DOW Ethiopian troops landed in Malabar and were quickly joined by allied forces; there were several very large battles in South India in the first year or so, vs the major Gujarati and Punjabi armies, that basically decided the war. These are only battles Ethiopian soldiers was involved in (except for the battles in Ahmadnagar, which are included by virtue of being very large); others can write their own army reports if they like. We largely fought together in the big early battles, then in separate smaller battles later. I try to note when there are more regiments than the numbers would indicate and they get stackwiped, since usually stackwiped regiments were pretty attrited.

Also, Spanish and English combats are not represented, because they were in a separate war and I don't want to look through the save anymore. They are present as allies in some of the initial battles though, IIRC. I was in most of the battles because I had the most stacks in India; 5 stacks of 12. So, this is a reasonably complete picture of the major battles of the war.

Malabar (ETH+allied 50k -2k vs GUJ 50k -9k) <-decisive battle
Madurai (ETH 20k vs GUJ 11k (half of attrited Malabar survivors) stackwipe)
Madras (ETH 20k -2k vs GUJ+PUN 40k -6k)
Madras II (ETH+allied 57k -11k vs GUJ+PUN 62k -23k) <-decisive battle
Bangalore (ETH+allied 84k -4k vs GUJ +PUNJ (retreated from Madras) 30k -12k)
Mysore (TRP + (iirc) ETH 30k vs GUJ 4k (GUJ's part of the Madras->Bangalore survivors) stackwipe)

After this point there was little left by way of big, reinforced Gujarati and Punjabi stacks in India; the biggest battles I fought in were against KOM. Which I kicked off by losing a stack to KOM when I pursued some attrited Gujaratis carelessly and ran into a lot of Mongols without a properly guarded line of retreat. My allies gave them a bloody nose in return though. :) Later I joined the bloodying with larger armies, but he managed to avoid losing any full stacks. Kept his lines of retreat covered, that cheeky bastard.

Nagpur (ETH 9k -5k vs KHA 32k -3k)
Khandesh ETH 3.5k stackwipe (Nagpur remnants) vs GUJ 1k)
Ahmadnagar (KON+TRP 75k -6.5k vs KHA 27k -15.5k)
Ahmadnagar II (KON+TRP 60k - 1.5k vs KHA 10k -5k)
Nagpur II (ETH 35k-3k vs GUJ+KHA 22k-13k)
Mandla (ETH 30k -.5k vs KHA 5k -2.5k)
Malwa (ETH 21k -1.3k vs KHA+GUJ 12k -1k) <-Alas, cover forces prevent stackwiping

After this however KOM had to withdraw his armies to fight Persia. The rest is mostly minor fighting, the largest battles are in the range of 10k vs 10k. Notable is the stackwipe of the last decent size Gujarati force by an Ethiopian army half its size:

Khandesh (ETH 8.5k -3k vs GUJ 15,5k -4k)
Maharastra (ETH 5.5k vs GUJ 11.5k stackwipe)

Simultaneously to the Indian battles were a series of battles in Arabia, where Punjab and Ethiopia share a border. Punjab got 25k troops into Arabia, led by the king. Wasn't expecting that, so I lost a couple battles. Having most of my attention on India didn't help, nor having all my generals busy in the same while his king was tearing it up in Arabia, but hey - India was the decisive theater, so it was OK to fight a back and forth sideshow against his king in Arabia for a while. Later I turned my attention fully to Arabia and killed his army there, but the earlier fighting cost me a fair number of casualties. My soldiers were in 2 stacks, and when I lost, was able to cover retreats; he had one stack, and therefore got stackwiped once he lost badly enough.

Nizwa (ETH 10k-4k vs PUN 22k-2k)
Dhofar (ETH 17k -6k vs PUN 20k -6k)
Dhofar (ETH 22k -3k vs PUN 13k -4k)
Muscat (ETH 11k -1k vs PUN 24k -1.5k)
Dhofar (ETH 20k -5k vs PUN 24k -6k)
Dhofar (ETH 22k -3k vs PUN 23k -11k) (here, I borrowed a general from India to combat his king)
Nizwa (ETH 27k -1.5k vs PUN 10k - 3k (and shipped in a spare 6k rebel control stack to join the party)
Suhar (ETH 28k -2k vs PUN 11k -3k)
Nizwa (ETH 25k -.5k vs PUN 7.5k - 5k)
Dhofar (ETH 10k vs PUN 2k stackwipe, finally)

After Punjabi armies in Arabia were destroyed, the land was occupied without incident.

That's the war from my side of the screen. The fighting I did inland in North India, which is tropical and has low support limits, wasn't kind to attrition and WE, but it didn't get too bad. I had some minor revoltrisk from WE, but nothing big, and there were police and reserve stacks left home that took swift care of the few lonely particularists that popped up.

So... yeah, I know it's boring without pictures, but it's my first MP war and I was too busy to take screenshots. Enjoy the wall of text with some big numbers.:D
 
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Things soured on my end due to Bengal. Ethiopia had publically guaranteed the independence of Bengal; during session, Bengal also sought protection from Croatia, an ally of the Ethiopian state. However Gujarat and Punjab took offense, warning Croatia to withdraw its protection over Bengal or else. I publically stated my alliance with Croatia and that in case of "or else" I would honor it; they ignored this and maintained their demands. Wasn't happy about that at all. I wanted to preserve Bengal and it didn't look like they were on board with that; I also didn't like them threatening my ally.

Ah, the unfortunate side effects of bad communications. I believe that Punjab and Gujarat (along with most of the Asian nations) wanted to preserve the independence of Bengal, up to and including its independence from all European dominance. There was serious discussion of a quadrilateral guarantee, Punjab-Gujarat-Khmer-Tibet all guaranteeing Bengal; of course this could not happen when it was vassalised. All that was wanted was to keep Asian affairs managed by Asians, not Europeans. If only these good intentions could have been communicated to the African powers! Now, alas, it seems that quite the opposite has been accomplished.

On a completely different note, has anyone heard from Orago recently? He seems to have disappeared.

After this point there was little left by way of big, reinforced Gujarati and Punjabi stacks in India; the biggest battles I fought in were against KOM. Which I kicked off by losing a stack to KOM when I pursued some attrited Gujaratis carelessly and ran into a lot of Mongols without a properly guarded line of retreat. My allies gave them a bloody nose in return though. Later I joined the bloodying with larger armies, but he managed to avoid losing any full stacks. Kept his lines of retreat covered, that cheeky bastard.

Yes, well. Outnumbered 2 to 1 against troops with superior tech, better not get too aggressive. Unfortunate that the steppe front offered me less room for maneuver. Even so it was a pretty close-run thing in India; I was lucky to run into a Punjabi stack in a mountain province that prevented a largish disaster.
 
It is time to wrap up The Basetax Is Right.

The correct sequence was:
'bavarian': 346,
'russian': 314,
'maghreb_arabic': 261,
'andalucian': 213,
'greek': 177,
'japanese': 160,
'ethiopian': 135,
'croatian': 121,
'inca': 115,
'mayan': 98,
'english': 97,
'kongolese': 96,
'rheinlaender': 86,
'tibetan': 69.

In last place, with a total variance of 95754, is Chogquir.
In the middle, with a total variance of 45670, King of Men.
The undisputed winner, with a variance of only 8582, Irsh_Faq! What do you want to name your island?
 
Hm. A Spanish name would be appropriate, would it not? Do I get to pick the island?

If so, I hereby christen the island currently marked in as "Jamaica" as "Isla de los Jenizaros" in commemoration of the brave Janissaries and their service in India.
 
If only these good intentions could have been communicated to the African powers!

I presume this discussion happened in the secret Asia subforum?

If in future you have good intentions you wish to communicate, I can only recommend not hiding them. When Croatia extends its protection over Bengal, and then Punjab and Gujarat loudly demand that the protection be withdrawn (after both taking Bengali lands prior), what conclusion do you expect me to reach?

That said, I didn't like the demands against Croatia in and of themselves, either. Although I'm sure you'll tell me Gujarat was secretly preparing a joint alliance with Croatia too? :p
 
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