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The Irish kings seem very clumsy; you ought to keep an eye on them! Another great update, although you are facing quite the formidable coalition.
 
Thats a lot of countries rushing to the defence. Good luck with that lol. Brittany is getting quite powerful btw, maybe it can rival Burgundy one day :D
 
Arakhor

Hehe... it's the Irish way after all! :)

Malurous

Indeed, it turns out everyone on the island jumped at the chance to get back at poor Ireland...

Avindian

Oh, it's a good thing the kings are so careless. It encourages natural selection, and ensures that we get only the best rulers!

Sethanon

Yes, Brittany got quite a few provinces from failing France. But Burgundy has far richer, and far more provinces. Plus, Burgundy is the HRE... it'll prove to be quite a mouthful in a future update (hint, hint ;)).
 
Chapter 19: Exploits galore!


So, our troops left the English island tattered. Luckily for us, our Irish navy can defend the home waters easily. We sortie to meet a Breton fleet landing soldiers on Eire.


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We are too late to prevent the disembarking, but we manage to lock the enemy fleet in combat.


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We win the battle easily, even though Northumberland sends ships (and an admiral) to help.


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Castillian ships trap the fleeing fleet and engage. We decide to repair our ships in port and let our staunch allies deal with the nuisance.


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Portugal offers a white peace after having lost a few provinces to Castille. We accept and have one less enemy to worry about.


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The Castillians seemingly cannot end the naval battle in St. George's Channel. We sortie our fleet and help our allies defeat the Breton fleet. We even gain a prize ship: the Formidable!


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England offers a white peace. We accept, we cannot fight all enemies at once. This allows us to concentrate on Northumbria (our main target for their past insolence), and on Brittany (our secondary target for their current insolence).


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Speaking of Brittany... What follows is a quick guide on how to exploit AI weaknesses. Close your eyes if you want to keep your playing style "pure"!

Brittany had landed troops in Eire. Too many to easily combat with our meagre home troops, still badly beaten from the last landing in England. We move our army away, so that there is no adjacent army to the Breton one.


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Like clockwork, the AI will now assault the province, losing men and, more importantly, morale.


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With the assault done (it doesn't matter if the enemy won or lost, but if they lost their morale will be even lower), we move our army to attack the AI.


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The resulting battle will (hopefully) be one-sided. We win, but the army is not yet annihilated. So we move after the fleeing enemy.


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And finally win.


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The English AI is so impressed by our gamey tactics that it immediately guarantees our independence. Even though we were just at war and bitter enemies. Well, suits us.


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Meanwhile, Castille is taking care of Breton mainland. It seems we have the war leader defeated!


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What now? Will Ireland drive the advantage home? Will Northumbria fall? Or can Scotland turn the tide? All this, next time on Ireland's Teardrop!
 
Ah, good to get those enemies out of the war. And your manpower pool isn't entirely shot either, you should have a good chance against the remaining alliance.

Of course, an added bonus with that tactic you used is the fact that even if the assault succeeds, the garrison will have 100 men or so when you arrive, making the province extremely easy to take back.
 
That's a mighty big Brittany; I could learn much from you in the ways of defensive tactics.
 
No wonder Britanny is such a powerhouse. It has Paris!
 
Yikes, I've missed a few updates.

This is a great AAR. I love how you're playing the Irish so well in a very hostile world. Many congrats for your victories over the enemy!
 
Sethanon

Oh yes. I always prefer to concentrate on 1-2 enemies and crush these mercilessly. Then I can switch to the remaining riff-raff.

Malurous

Yes, manpower is a problem (we lost nearly our entire MP pool in reinforcements for that disastrous first attack), but given time it's replenishing. With Brittany out of the equation it's only Scotland left. Scary enough, those highlanders!

Good point on the exploit: even if you lose the province you can easily re-assault it later.

Avindian

Oh, I'm not that good of a player, it also takes a little luck. The good thing about Ireland being an island is that while the AI will send troops there, it's very bad at keeping up the pressure because it cannot mount co-ordinated naval invasions. That makes defending Ireland easy.

I'll have another gameplay "lesson" on scorched earth and retreating tactics later (at least a couple of updates).

BootOnFace

Yep, Brittany is basically the heir to France. They don't have a core on Ile-de-France, but it's a big boost already.

Ashantai

Thanks :) The most difficult part is uniting Ireland, because that entails winning against England. Once that's done, you've got a nice, defensible island and England was already beaten at least once. Makes the immediate threat to survival bearable.

In a "normal" game, I'd have already set out to colonise, which will give you a large advantage, and also quite some leeway in Europe because it's extra provinces the AI cannot easily reach.

EktorGomes

I think you'll like the peace treaty, then! ;)
 
There is a slight hint in his sig....
Wait what happens if you cannot COLONIZE ALL THE AMERICAS?
 
first congrats on the PhD, second just caught up - looks like England is there for the taking by whoever can be bothered from now on, which leaves you and your noble Scottish allies as the grand fromages of the North West (esp as the BBB is also in a mess) ... in fact it looks like the various Irish doctrines have reduced North Western Europe to a complete shambles
 
Monzon

Thanks! No, I'm not tempted to expand into Europe. I plan to keep my nice and defensible island and Europe can go crazy over whatever issues they think is worthwhile. Too much landmass = too many armies. I cannot compete with those armies without a navy to hold them from my home provinces :)

CivandEUIII

If I can't colonise, I'll have to conquer! ;) I had hoped that with my late colonisation entry the other European powers would have more colonies, so more interesting wars. With hindsight, I shouldn't have set my usual land province spread to 75 years. Oh well, next time.

loki100

Thanks :) Well, Scotland is getting too powerful to my liking. Plus, we are now no longer allied, because they decided to fight us :( But all the other countries are in a suitable mess, not posing much of a threat to me any more.
 
Chapter 20: Why does that Welsh flag have my mother-in-law on it?


The Irish navy is still busy protecting the home shores. We intercept a Northumbrian fleet with quite a lot of ships. How does the AI build up such a huge fleet so quickly?


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The battle is, luckily, a rather one-sided affair. Sadly, we do not capture or sink any ships.


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Scotland offers a white peace -- and, we accept. I could fight Scotland, but it's a major hassle. They have large armies, well-lead. I prefer to first teach Brittany a lesson. Besides, the Scottish and the Irish are long-time allies. Only the temporary confusion of the Scottish king in choosing which side to be on in this war put him on our enemy's side.


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The war overview, we are now comfortably in the lead.


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Brittany sees the pointlessness of this war and offers peace. They must be mistaken, just because we accepted every other white peace offer, doesn't mean we're going to accept every white peace offer! This one is soundly rejected.


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And why should we accept? The war is going well. We are besieging a number of Breton provinces, and Castille has even sent troops to help us out! Note, Scotland has decided that it will attack England, seeing as they have a truce with us. The Hansa also decided that some English provinces are up for grabs.


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We offer Northumbria a peace deal they cannot refuse. They will become our vassals for their previous insolence. No longer will they have any say in foreign matters!


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With our original target out of the war, we can now offer Brittany (the war leader) peace. Wales is ceded to Ireland. Relatively poor, but still provinces of the same culture group. Plus, we might need a foothold in England for future wars. It's a risk: We cannot hope to defend the provinces against the armies of Scotland or England, and if they occupy the provinces that will be continuous WE for us. Still, I'm taking the risk, because the provinces will also give us more manpower, and more importantly, force limits.


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Soon after the ink is dry on the peace treaty, Brittany guarantees our independence. Talk about short attention span.... oh! Shiny!


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Castillian diplomats arrive, asking for our help in a war again. This time against Aragorn, which is allied to England. Luckily for us, England is still soundly beaten from the war against Scotland and The Hansa. We accept the call to arms.


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While pondering on how to disguise the non-action of the Irish Alliance Doctrine this time, Castillian diplomats send news that the war was won after barely two years. Portugal was the alliance leader and was apparently only too delighted to give up Aragonese provinces for peace. They might have stolen a copy of the Irish Alliance Doctrine manual somehow...


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We sell Northumberland Lancashire to give them a little boost. Plus, it nicely cuts the English island into two halves.


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Brittany decides that it never again wants to be on the losing side of a war against us, and offers us an alliance. We accept. Also note the map of Western Europe in 1490. France is gone, and Castille is expanding steadily. England, while losing provinces on their home island by the minute, is stubbornly defending and holding on to its last remaining French province. Scotland is getting quite scary, we need to concern ourselves with them next!


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Tune in next time, with more wars... only against whom? England? Scotland? Kongo? Find out in the next update of Ireland's Teardrop!
 
A successful Scotland, Bohemia and Brittany with my favoured Burgundians not doing too badly either. It seems a shame that you're likely going to wail all over at least one or two of them. :(
 
Yes, Scotland must be regulated a little bit.
But in the longer term, Burgundy and Denmark-after-annexing-Norway (as it usually does) will be your biggest foes for predominance.

A very risky scenario would happen if Burgundy beats the various French minors and Brittany and forms France. So, better not to weaken too much Brittany.
As always, great updates!
 
Nice gains in Wales. Other than the rising Scotland, things are looking up.

The remnants of England, those disconnected Scottish lands, Northumberland in the wrong place, Irish Wales, and Brittany and the Hansa have provinces too. England is a real mess. :D
 
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