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unmerged(106498)

Lt. General
Jul 5, 2008
1.509
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Edit: Starting 1399 in the grand campaign, this will be a basic Gameplay AAR now because I'm just not a great story writer.


Game settings: Difficulty hard, spread of discoveries 200 years, lucky nations off, all other settings default, single player playing Vijayanagar. DW 5.1.

Rules: No save/reload unless there's a game breaking flaw (corrupted file, etc), no war without CB, I will attempt to do all missions if I am reasonably able to do so. No console commands, mods, or file editting. Everything that happens will be the result of luck (or lack of it), events, player strategy, and the randomness of the AI.

Edit: I made one change to this and allowed save/reload for the slave uprising and tea party events because these should not be happening in India if the provinces are owned by an Indian nation in the pre-slave era.

Objectives: to restore Hindu to all of India and beyond, attack/invade/take territory from Muslims as frequently as possible, and prepare India for the day it encounters the west and protect it from invasion from the evil Christians!

And with that, I begin!
 
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Good to see another AAR by you already. I'll follow, with some added interest due to having just played a Vijayanagar game.
 
Good luck! Will be following closely!
 
@Derehan: Thanks, I'll probably need it.

@boom: it really is hard to say how things will work out tbh. If I do, that will be far far away. Got Hordes, OE, Mams, and other Indian nations in the way first. Not too mention China in the East! I haven't played in India since early HTTT days, but back then China was always a troublemaker for me on the Eastern border.

@Malurous: Yea, not in school atm, time to kill when I'm not at work or fixing my huge and extremely outdated house. At least the roof doesn't leak! *knocks on wood.*

@Ashanti: Thanks again, and again, I'll probably need it.
 
Ok, Game start: I get a mission to save the Telegu people in Deccan. I sent PG's to Bengal and Bahir. I needed to get a 3rd diplomat for wardec and more troops. These are my advisors and the mission on day one. Slider shift <-centralized.

V1399140ct.jpg
 
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1399-1401 The Great Deccan War of Minute Proportions Part 1!

I waited for 2 more diplomats which gave me time to build more troops. Deccan declared war on Gondwana and invaded along with their ally Khandesh. They had about 20k troops between them. As soon as I got the 2 diplomats, I formed an alliance with Orissa first. Second, I declared war on Deccan and Orissa joined. I sent my main stack against his main stack while they had low morale after sieging. It was a disaster. Die rolls really killed me, with me getting three 0's in a row along with them having a better general with their Sultan. I withdrew into the Orissa main army so his army didn't follow mine and crush it. I didn't have the manpower to build another stack.

I let marched my army around his back to friendly territory to let it recover and then sent alliance offers to my two vassals (I'd forgotten Vijayanager starts with 2 vassals) Then I split my force and sent small 1-2k groups to siege in the western part of Deccan. I again took on his main stack with the intent to draw them North into the Orissa army where the two armies would have a numerical advantage. I hit his army, let two combat cycles go, then withdrew, and his stack did chase mine into the next province:

V14003.jpg


Much like the last fight, the combat rolls were completely lopsided, and I was forced to retreat again. Luckily my two vassals had moved up their armies into an adjacent province so I had a safe path to retreat to. I also sent a pinning attack against his main army (moving a small force towards his big force) when I made my withdraw so his troops would sit stationary temporarily while my main army went home to recover again. Deccan finished sieging the last territory of Gondwana and annexed them. The enemy forces that had been in Gondwana went south into Orissa.

V1401.jpg


You'll notice that while I was keeping his main army busy, my small siege forces were on the verge of capturing some territory.
 
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1401-1403 The Great Deccan War of Minute Proportions Part 2!!

Orissa was in trouble. The first fight had taken their stack down to about 1/3 strength and they had no manpower left so early in the game to replenish. They sat idle in an attempt to recover while enemy forces sieged and captured a province. I moved my main force to chase out the enemy from Orissa territory and sent more feints against his main force so it wouldn't move to back up his other units in Orissa. That strategy doesn't always work, but it did this time.

V14011.jpg


It took two assaults to recapture the Orissa city. While this was going on the main enemy army moved to recapture an occupied province. They failed to assault because of adjacent troops. Orissa moved their army into Indravati. I got a CTA from Bengal. Bahir had invaded! I looked over that situation and figured I had time before Bahir would get anywhere, so I chased and destroyed all the enemy forces in the Deccan war except for his main stack. The sieging armies of Travanacore and Mysore along with my own small units were having good success. With most of Deccan and Khandesh all captured or under siege.

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My main army turned South after hunting down the smaller enemy forces, again to engage the enemy main stack which was bearing down on Mysore. My troops were at reduced morale from recent fighting and needed to recover, but I didn't want the Mysore army wiped out and the large Deccan force roaming around breaking all the sieges going on in his territory. Again die rolls killed me! I've had bad luck in many fights, but this was getting rediculous! I again had to send a feint attack against his stack to cover my withdraw.

Despite the string of losses, the strategy of splitting my force to conduct sieges while keeping his main force preoccupied had managed to capture most of the enemy territory. As the Grand Royal Army rested in the capital and reinforcements were assigned to their regiments, my King died and a pretender popped up in Goa.

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I sent my main army to go take out the pretender then brought it back to reinforce. The Deccan main force was sieging in Telingana, and the walls were breached. I was concerned that if Orissa lost a province, they'd peace out giving up turf, so I gathered my smaller forces into one big stack to try and take on the enemy stack again. Again die rolls and generals were in favor of the enemy, but his morale was very low because I'd captured most of the enemy territory already so his army broke. I took huge losses to gain victory, but for the first time, his main army was on the run.


14031.jpg


I chased down the Deccan army and had to beat it two more times before finally wiping it out. With no more troops, Deccan was eager to make peace. Orissa captured Indravati and peaced out, taking that province.

14032.jpg


Small groups of regiments were spread across Deccan to lay siege to every province not already occupied. My main army, just a fraction of it's original size and not getting any bigger anytime soon sinec I had no manpower, now went to fight in the second war against Bahir.

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As one war was comming to an end, the entry of the my forces into the other war caused Bahir to make peace as well. In two seperate negotiations, peace was made on both fronts.

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With that first victory, the size of Vijayanager was almost doubled. Perhaps more importantly, there were now three new border nations who were all Islamic Sultanates. Yay! So the first war ended with me playing a tune (Hard To See) from an album title I will quote: "War is the Answer!" by Five Finger Death Punch.
 
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1404-1414 A Decade of War! (You were expecting something else? I hope not.)


Two years passed before enough young men were available to fill my armies back to full strength and still have some in reserve, and that was when I decided to strike!

Two diplomats were sent out on June 11 1405, declaring war on both Gujarat and Dehli. Two seperate wars meant two seperate peace deals, and since I'd be fighting both either way, I opted for seperate wars on each. Dehli called in their mighty allies... OE? Really? Mmkay. I wonder how soon their troops will arrive walking all the way across Timmy territory.

My army rushed into Gujarat, engaged the Gujarat army, and hunted it down to destruction. Leaving enough men behind to capture the all provinces, I moved into Malwa and began to siege the fortress in Mandu. My Auxiliary army was already sieging the city of Mandla, so both armies could support one another if needed. Only a token force showed up from Dehli, and it was quickly chased north all the way to the capital city where it was destroyed.

As cities in Gujarat and southern Delhi were beginning to surrender, the Delhi army had lost enough men to satisfy the mission. Next mission? Vassalize Bahir. Rebels in the western Deccan territory had spilled over into Vijayanager, but I let them capture a province of mine, so when they formed Maharasthra, I'd annex them for 0 infamy.

14071.jpg


Once the last Gujarat city was captured, I claimed these newly liberated lans for Vijayanager!

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Soon after the annexation of Gujarat the city of Delhi surrendered, and Delhi gave up their southern provinces.

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The allies of Delhi and Gujarat soon made peace. I was not done however! I moved into position to deal a death blow to Khandesh and Deccan. Soon after the truce expired, war was declared on each. I drove the forces of Khandesh away from their capital and began a siege, punctuated with assaults on the city walls. My secondary stack destroyed the army of Deccan and found the cities were poorly defended by troops who had no will to fight. As quickly as the army could march, I captured city after city. Orissa beat me to one province by 2 days. They captured one city and agreed to peace on the terms that the city would be ceded to Orissa. Vijayanager took everything else.

14111.jpg


While the wars had been going on, rebels had broken free in the west and formed a new nation at war with Vijayanager. My troops captured their cities, and demanded annexation.

14112.jpg


Rajputana decided they didn't like my rapid growth right up to their border and declared war. Orissa was allied with both nations, but luckily for them, not stupid in this one instance, so they joined my side.

14113.jpg


I did a hammer and anvil manoeuver on the Rajput main army and crushed it like a watermellon trapped between the road and a truck tire! I spread out one stack to siege the entirity of Rajputana and sent my second stack to go beat up their ally, Bahir. Then this! Bah I HATE this event.

14121.jpg


Orissa fought Bahir and was badly defeated. They withdrew to their capital where they were slaughtered outside the city gates. The Bahir army set up a siege, but their presence in Orissa left their own territory wide open to my second stack. A few months later, the undefeated Bahir army had to surrender and return home peacefully where their new King swore his allegiance to Vijayanager.

14122.jpg


As armies were sieging Rajputana, rebels started to rise all across Vijayanager. The army was sent out to put down these revolts. If you have never played in India, you don't know how bad rebels can be! They almost always win a siege in 3-6 months and are extremely hard to kill because they 'bounce' when defeated instead of wiping out. The only way to kill them in the early part of the game is to let them recover a couple months between fights. If they have no morale, they just bounce to the next province taking few or no losses.

14123.jpg


With the war all but won and the national investment spent for over a decade on improving the government reaching the first stepping stone in advancement, my King was so happy he had a heart attack while chasing rebels.

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I decided to take only two provinces from Rajputana, and not take a border with the timmies yet because they were at this time the largest nation with the biggest army, and I had rebels bouncing around all my recently taken non-cored provinces.

14125.jpg


I needed to stabalize my country and tame the revolts before taking on any 'major' wars.
 
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1415-1425 Integrating Mysore and Travanacore

Travanacore did not accept my offer to incorporate them, but Mysore did.

V14151.jpg


Travanacore it seemed would need to be taken by force. Too bad for them! I broke alliance, cancelled mil access, then cancelled their vassalization. Orissa now decided to get their nose in my business and formed an alliance with them right before I declared war. Bad idea! When war was declared, they picked the wrong side. Worse idea!

V14153.jpg


My armies pounded Orissa into the ground. What other possible outcome could there be? I sieged both Travanacore provinces and wiped out the naval forces of both nations.

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It took some time for all the sieging, but in the end I would take my prize.

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I continued the war vs Orissa because they were attacked by several neighbors while I held their territory, and I wasn't going to let some interloper nations start taking provinces next to me. As this was going on, Rajputana had been beaten up by the Timmies who'd made peace with Delhi. Delhi then declared war on Rajputana while they were weak.

V14201.jpg


Not wanting anymore Infamy, I let Orissa off with only monetary punishment for their bad choices once they were at peace with everyone. I left them bankrupt and maxed in WE, and used the cash to fund patriots in their off-culture provinces. I added them to my sphere and waited for provinces to flip.

V14241.jpg
 
1425-1435 Hindustan or Bust!

Well, you can't have a Hindu country as your start point and an AAR title of 'Hindu Vengeance!' without trying to form Hindustan, so I was hungry for any chance to grab territory I knew I would need to achieve that aim. And as luck would have it, such chances were not hard to come by! And of course a few provinces that were just because.

I watched the Vijayanager sponsored rebels beat down the Orissa army attempting to break their siege several times. It's not every day you're actually cheering for the rebels to win, but it really made me happy to see my hard won peace deal money did not go to waste. Then a pretender from another slider shift interupted the show.

V14261.jpg


My latest King hadn't been on the throne for very long, but I was certain he'd lead to a promising future for my country! His stats were good, his legit was high, and the only problem with him was... well, he died.

V14271.jpg


Nothing hurts your warmongering like a Regency! Soon after, my rebels were victorious, adding two more provinces to my great nation and they came with super-high revolt risk. I wouldn't have had it any other way!

V14281.jpg


Orissa was now a 4PM, but and needed two more of those provinces at least for Hindustan. In order to satisfy my CB rule, I'd need to wait for the right oportunity.

I was able to reach my 'create a proper fleet' mission when rebels sieged my capitol, thus giving me the new mission to grab Lucknow for a core. Between Delhi and the Tims, Rajputana was getting completely face-stomped.

V14282.jpg


After a couple years in a regency, my new King was ready to take power! It looked like Delhi was about to annex Rajputana, so I gave them a little more time before declaring war.

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I decided instead to nick a province from Bengal, who'd been annexing some Hindu nations in my self-proclaimed territorial boundary zone. It was pretty fast. I just occupied provinces with active missionaries and took what I was after. I didn't want to take more, because his other provinces would be disconnected and prone to revolt constantly.

V14311.jpg


As this was going on, Dehli did indeed annex the remains of Rajputana, never fully recovered really from their war with me. This was ideal, giving me the chance to grab all those provinces at one infamy each via religious liberation since Hindu nations do not get HW CB.

After moving my armies into place, I was ready for war! This is what our two countries looked like at the time:

V14312.jpg


With the main Delhi army assaulting a rebel occupied province, the time to strike was right then and there! (You can see them assaulting in the last screenshot) Their army was large but now at low morale so my troops raced across the border to take advantage of the situation.

With both Vijayanager and Bahir armies crashing the party, Delhi forces were beaten back and wiped out. I had to be agressive in order to take as much of India as I could while the Timmies were still sorting things out in the West, leaving India largely unmolested for now.

V14313.jpg


A quick check of what the world was looking like and I knew it was in my best interest to delay taking a Border with the Tims as long as I posibly could. With most of my nation uncored and revolt-prone, the last thing I needed was 100k Hordling troops hitting me in the West while my 30k troops were chasing rebels around all over the place.

V14321.jpg


The war was over in the first few days with the destruction of the Delhi Army, but the sieges would take another year or two. I took four provinces from Delhi, leaving a thin shield between myself and the Tims in the west.

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With the Delhi war over, my next target was Orissa thanks to a mission. The best part was that they were PG'd by Ceylon, who themselves had done some expanding into the continent East of India. I needed that Island for Hindustan and this was the first chance I had to take a piece of it! I had no intention of letting that chance go to waste.

V14332.jpg


Before I could even use my shiney new CB, Orissa did something great and stupid simultaneously! Great for me, stupid for them!

V14333.jpg


In order to make sure Ceylon was in the war however, I needed to attack with my CB. And so I did! I converted my ruler to a general and he was amazing! 6 shock and 3 speed! I -HAD- to use him, he was too good not to! His very first fight would be on Ceylon, and a glorious day it would be! Except this happened.

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So, awesome ruler/general dies in his first fight with no heir, new King, 20 legit, RR instantly jumps up across the country by about 5. Yay! On the plus side, Hindustan was starting to look like an inevitability.
 
Excellent progress! You write very good gameplay descriptions, so stick with it if you enjoy them. Great work. :)
 
1435-1450 getting a border with the Timmies and the first war with the Horde!

Things were looking great for Vijayanager other than the high RR across most of the country. Things for Delhi were not good at all. They'd peaced out with the horde to their North without doing any real damage earlier, and now they were in trouble. Revolts were running rampant in their western territories and they could barely even scrounge an army together with their tribute payments to the Tims. It seemed very likely that sooner rather than later I would have a border with the Tims when they gobbled up the revolter states that were going to spring up from the collapse of Delhi. I decided to act first and start another war to occupy these provinces myself before things spun out of control. I -needed- those western provinces as close to the mountain range that defines the Indian subcontinent as possible because only in those mountains did I stand a chance of fighting back the enourmous army of the Tims which was 125k at this point.

V14381.jpg



The war with Orissa was going well but I was in a holding pattern because I wanted Ceylon to lose it's 4 provinces on the continent before making peace. I had to rely on rebels and AI nations to take those territories, and that was going to take time. My new King spawned a new heir with high diplomacy.

V14401.jpg


In 1441, Ceylon had lost it's continental holdings and was ready to make peace. I took half of their island and left them at high WE and open for invasion.

V14411.jpg


I also made peace with Orissa, taking two provinces from them that I would need to form Hindustan. I continued to occupy Delhi except for one province which had been grabbed by a horde. In 1442 that province flipped, giving me my first war with Chagatai.

V14421.jpg


The very same day I made peace with Ceylon, Maldives declared war on them and invaded. It took a while, but eventually they annexed Ceylon and thus gave me a CB to take the rest of the island for 1 BB.

V14441.jpg


I sat on Delhi and Orissa as long as I could. I was concerned that I'd WP out if I didn't make peace soon and find myself thrust into the unavoidable war against the Tims. I knew the first war would be the hardest, when I had the fewest cores, the most revolts, and the least amount of cash available for replacement troops and colonial attempts. Still, there was no way around it! I took everything from Dehli on the Western front, having occupied them long enough to push the cost for those provinces down. My troops were in position with one army in reserve hunting rebels and small 1k units ready to use scorched earth. I hate to resort to that but I only had about 20k troops on the border and knew that just wasn't going to be enough.

V14481.jpg


A quick check revealed the Tims were only at war with one other nation in the west, and they were winning with 100 warscore over their opm foe. Thus I expected them to hit me with everything, and it was going to be a very -BIG- everything with black flagged armies smashing into my tiny border force.

V14482.jpg


The Horde armies came in a trickle first, and then like a flood, they just started slowly rising in volume as far as the eye could see. I let his armies come in because my border provinces were not defensible terrain. My small 1k units scorched the earth in his path and sat in adjacent provinces. When his armies would grow weak, I'd beat them down, sometimes destroying them before they could be backed up by fresh stacks. Slowly my warscore climed, as did their WE and RR. The Timmies withdrew their battered stacks only to return them later with fresh replacement troops. While I was able to prevent them from taking any territory, my only hope was to bloody their nose enough for a peace. After two years and destroying about 40k of his endless units, My own army was in bad shape. With the resumption of war in the West, the Tims agreed to make peace.

V14501.jpg


A look at this map reveals what a rampage the Tims and GH were on:

EU3_MAP_VIJ_145252_1.jpg
 
1450 and the Tims are still dangerous. Ottomans and Teutonic Knights both swallowed up. Hrmm... This is why I play Death and Taxes rather than vanilla xD

Nice job with the scorched earth tactics. And, take heart... only a few more wars until the nomad's pathetic tech rates catch up to them.