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Wow, Rashid is a real conqueror! Hey, do I spot a Jalayirid army in the Austrian Balkans?

So... what do we do now? Does Malurous simply continue, then I, then Hawkiee again, etc?
 
Yes, I tried to walk to British Italy, but couldn't get the necesarry permits. Well, I don't mind, offcourse if some of the others want to join in again I have nothing against it, but we can probably finish as we are so close to the end.
 
The others haven't been online lately, so I wouldn't wait for them. Unless one turns up tonight (in which case they're very welcome to play) I'll take it tomorrow.

@Kommando: Props for still keeping the table of contents up to date! :)

And don't worry Hawkiee, I believe our infamy burn is pretty nice so 10.6 is hardly prohibitive at this point.
 
First update coming tonight! I don't feel like writing any narrative right now (just wrote two Gentlemen in Germany chapters yesterday) and don't want to keep you guys waiting either, so I'm going for a gameplay account this time around.
 
The Reign of Sultan Ahmad III
Part One (1728-1734)

When Ahmad III takes the throne, we're currently in a war against Great Britain, Montenegro and Flanders (in addition to the usual Timurid conflict). Trebizond and Zeta have been taken but that's all so far.

We seem to be investing in Production tech despite being ahead of time, I switch to Naval as we're about ten levels behind the Europeans in that category and wouldn't stand a chance in a big battle.

Excellent general Anwar Ahmad takes 27000 men and boards the fleet, arriving in British Italy in September after sinking Montenegro's fleet. At the same time, we hear bad news from the east: we have no way of holding Banten unfortunately.

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Ahmad's army assaults a bunch of British forts (fortunately nothing but level ones in southern Italy) and by February 1729 we hold Calabria, Apulia, Messina and Malta.

That's when the situation becomes a bit more tricky...

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We scorch the earth in Abkhazia and take defensive positions on the Bohemian border. They have a significantly worse Land tech, but their numbers are a bit worrying. Additional Jalayirid troops are sent in from Anatolia and I recruit 15000 more men there to replace the local army.

Ak Koyunlu does a good job helping with any small Bohemian armies trying to sneak in in the north. I'm content to simply watch the Bohemians siege while their WE soars.

We sink a lonely British transport on the North African coast in May. Days later, things get worse again.

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Uh oh. Our fleet is stuck west of Italy so blocking the straits isn't realistic any time soon, and I can't even infiltrate administration to see where their armies are as an initial failure forced me to use both available spies on Bohemia earlier. Two armies start the march from India to Anatolia to be on the safe side.

Savoy joins the war on Venice's side while we take control of British Corsica and Pisa. Next up: Romagna in September. Our ships end up hiding in port as I notice a very large British fleet in the Med.

We take Ancona in November, but the British land 33k troops in southern Italy to retake what we took there earlier. Thankfully, the fleet leaves so we can sail again. This enables me to finally check out Venice's Balkan holdings. Turns out that I wouldn't have had to worry: they don't have any men there at all! Really smart declaration of war in that case. I start working on grabbing some provinces quickly - it seems that at least one of these wars shouldn't take too long to finish. The Indian armies, now in Azerbaijan, start marching back as I don't think I'll need them now.

By January 1730 Bohemia's WE is up to 9.2 and the stack in Abkhazia seems ready for a beating. And that's what they get.

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We chase to Kaffa, eliminate the army and assault the poorly fortified province.

Butana, one of our two colonies in Africa, reaches city status in February. Next month, we're done with Venice.

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I wanted to get this over with in order to concentrate on Bohemia and GB, and Rhodes seems like a pretty safe province to take.

We occupy Crimea in April, and Bohemia would accept white peace. I don't think so, I'll want at least Kaffa out of this, maybe Crimea too as both are relatively rich. Turns out that the window of opportunity closes pretty soon - the Bohemians sign peace with Poland in May, and now they suddenly aren't willing to negotiate anymore.

I get royal marriages with both Makassar and Brunei. They have succession issues so you never know if this might allow a lucky PU.

Kharkov and Zaporozhia are occupied by July, and Bohemia is now asking for white peace. More importantly, they're willing to give us Kaffa. My first intention is to hold out for Crimea, but then I spy 132 fully healthy regiments coming home from their Polish campaign. Fine, Kaffa it is...

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Our modest gains from the Venetian and Bohemian wars: Rhodes and Kaffa.

Charjo cores in November. Funny, I realize now that I'm playing almost exactly fifty years after my previous turn.

We've lost the provinces in southern Italy by now, but my fleet has kept the British out of Sicily. In February 1731 I land one army into Messina and pick up another one while the first one is marching towards Calabria. With reinforcements landing during the defensive battle, the British army suffers badly.

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Calabria is assaulted, while the second army, still in almost perfect shape, chases the British and assaults Apulia. It's a hopeless ping-pong for the British as there's a large army stationed in both provinces now.

White peace is signed with Flanders, at least helping a little bit with the warscore. Decent heir Uwais is born in April.

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The British army in southern Italy is finally eliminated in late May. Mahmud Hussain, our second best general, dies soon after while attempts at more African colonization as well as the diploannexation of Ak Koyunlu fail. I've tried to annex a couple of times now, and I believe my predecessors did also... Stubborn people in Ak Koyunlu apparently.

We occupy all of their Med holdings but the British won't even accept white peace. I therefore drop some troops in Portugal and occupy Ribatejo in December. There was no resistance.

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Meanwhile, Rajputana is the one that gets the honor of annexing Samarkand.

I'm wondering what to do with the British. Any further conquest seems risky as hell, but I certainly don't feel like forking over some cash to end a war that I'm clearly winning. I decide to take the risk - as we've gained two Naval tech levels in my turn, we're one away from Twodeckers. If I get our navy annihilated, I'll just build a new, better one! With that, we head for England.

Anwar Ahmad eliminates the small army in Cornwall in June 1732 and soon assaults the province.

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Meanwhile, the navy is picking up a second army, led by new general Fahd Jahagir, from Tangiers. Jahagir isn't nearly as good in the battlefield as Ahmad, but the combination of strong maneuver and a siege pip isn't exactly bad for this type of operation.

The Incompetent Diplomacy event gives us one infamy - not a huge problem as we were down to six.

Nubia cores and Kabylia converts while I wait for Jahagir's army to arrive in England. It does so in September, and I feel confident enough to start assaulting provinces in southern England. Their 22k army flees whenever one of our similarly sized armies approaches, making this pretty easy. The other, smaller army we manage to trap and destroy early on.

Gloucestershire and Wessex have fallen by October, and GB still refuses to consider even a white peace. Stab hit time!

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Naval tech level 32 for Twodeckers in discovered in November. After the war is over, I'm looking to disband some of the older ships and replace them.

Oxfordshire, Norfolk, Kent and Essex fall before the year is over. I give the British another stab hit as they still don't see reason.

I finally surround their army in early February 1733 and leave it in pretty bad shape.

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It's eliminated immediately after and I start assaulting provinces at my leisure. A siege stack is sent to the level 4 fort in London - other than that nearly everything is level 1 fortunately - where the British have queued a dozen mercenary regiments. Easy battle warscore!

113 British ships show up in May. You're a bit late guys, our navy is sitting pretty comfortably in the safety of one of your ports.

A Natural Scientist we had in our court dies and I decide to recruit a five star Theologian. We have a good number of missionaries going so this should help more than a tech guy considering the size of our economy.

By April 1734 we occupy all of England, Scotland and Wales except for London. The assault stack heads for the capital. While it's marching, we gain three infamy due to a political crisis, and Oran converts. The assault succeeds in July and we control all of the island.

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Isn't it funny how the British would have got away with just giving Trebizond if not for their incredible stubbornness? Now they get a 100 point peace deal thrown at them.

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We get Malta (unfortunately it's distant overseas, but it fits nicely with our North African land) in addition to Trebizond which finishes Anatolia, while the liberated Naples, Urbino, Pisa and Corsica leave the British with no land in Italy - or in the Mediterranean for that matter.

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Wales is now free, while the British holdings in Ireland are liberated as Leinster. Outside the regions pictured, a 3PM Malacca gains its freedom.
 
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Wow, awesome! Take that you stubborn Brits! I laughed so hard when I saw their pretty red island all covered in blue stripes, hahaha!

You're doing great, I wonder what your next goal will be. :)
 
Thanks! I do have some ideas, but it remains to be seen if Ahmad III lives long enough to see them through. I have only played some years further than this.

The great part there was that the liberations worked so well. It was pretty neat to just throw the Brits out of the Med in one war despite their rather notable holdings.
 
The great part there was that the liberations worked so well. It was pretty neat to just throw the Brits out of the Med in one war despite their rather notable holdings.

Yeah! I guess the Brits had no other options after their whole country was occupied by what once was a minor Mongol tribe :D. (But indeed, it's really nice that having them release & cede all that cost less than 100% WS)
 
Nice going! Didin't think that Venice and Bohemia also would join in the fray but you handled that nicely. Bohemian troops are more or less rubish so you could easily have hold them off in defensive battles with a good general I think. The problem though is that if you kill 40k they bring 80k next time :S

Nice work with Great Britain, just a minor note is that we have a CB on Venice that allows us to take Edirne for 2 infamy, don't remember what it's called but it is due to culture.

Keep up the great work!
 
Xerxe... ehm Ahmad III should invade Greece!
 
Very nice gains... but it's sad to see that the aar went gameplay :(

The first/middle entries were in such an awesome narrative style, along with a story about uncovering manuscripts from the begining of Jalayirid empire etc... and now it comes down to "I DoWed X", an unnamed advisor was swaped for another unnamed advisor... I hoped that after the aar was reactivated it's glorious days would return, but alas it was not so.
 
Very nice gains... but it's sad to see that the aar went gameplay :(

The first/middle entries were in such an awesome narrative style, along with a story about uncovering manuscripts from the begining of Jalayirid empire etc... and now it comes down to "I DoWed X", an unnamed advisor was swaped for another unnamed advisor... I hoped that after the aar was reactivated it's glorious days would return, but alas it was not so.

Can you be a bit more specific? I think Hawkiee's and mine were narrative... Hawkiee's seemingly written by someone in the Jalayirid govt, mine more history bookish. Malurous said he didn't feel like writing narrative b/c he'd just done so in his other AAR.
 
Nice going! Didin't think that Venice and Bohemia also would join in the fray but you handled that nicely. Bohemian troops are more or less rubish so you could easily have hold them off in defensive battles with a good general I think. The problem though is that if you kill 40k they bring 80k next time :S

Nice work with Great Britain, just a minor note is that we have a CB on Venice that allows us to take Edirne for 2 infamy, don't remember what it's called but it is due to culture.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks! I'm sure I could have given the Bohemians a beating, but frankly I got what I really wanted except for Crimea. I found it a bit silly to go for a huge war for such meager gains when there was so much more going on.

Also, the problem when you see around 170k enemy troops in all in your border area is that you sort of have to pay attention. At the same time, the British could land those 30+ regiment stacks of modern troops wherever they wanted, plus an encounter with their navy would have been deadly (they didn't try to attack because the AI only sees that we have more big ships and doesn't realize the tech situation, but we could have still run into them by accident). That's a lot of paying attention - I certainly can handle the "pause every day and scroll around the map wildly to check every front" gameplay, but that doesn't mean that I particularly enjoy it. :D

Xerxe... ehm Ahmad III should invade Greece!

Maybe if there's spare time and infamy. For now he has other ideas. :)

Very nice gains... but it's sad to see that the aar went gameplay :(

The first/middle entries were in such an awesome narrative style, along with a story about uncovering manuscripts from the begining of Jalayirid empire etc... and now it comes down to "I DoWed X", an unnamed advisor was swaped for another unnamed advisor... I hoped that after the aar was reactivated it's glorious days would return, but alas it was not so.

My apologies - a problem with this fine format that is the succession AAR is that if you take your time working on a post at some point, you're going to keep other players waiting, plus you can't have a backlog to keep it alive as you only have the game for such a short time. My first attempt was to write in the same style that my earlier posts in this AAR were, but as the beginning just wouldn't turn out well (partially because of the complicated events I'm sure, but also because I just didn't have the inspiration) I decided I'd rather write a decent gameplay account (I'm not the right person to judge but I'd guess it was that) than a shoddy, uninspired narrative post. :)

I'll try to do better in the next post but that is no promise: especially with the accidental hiatus this AAR ended up having, I don't feel like I can sit around for a month waiting for inspiration. ;)
 
Any news here?

Yes, a surprise work trip kept me out of the Internet for most of this week but I've finished my turn. Save here (sorry that the site is annoying, mediafire seems to have gone all weird and I didn't know what to use).

Still have to get my bearings now that I'm properly back home, but I'll get to making the AAR update as soon as I can.
 
Yes, a surprise work trip kept me out of the Internet for most of this week but I've finished my turn. Save here (sorry that the site is annoying, mediafire seems to have gone all weird and I didn't know what to use).

Still have to get my bearings now that I'm properly back home, but I'll get to making the AAR update as soon as I can.

I got the save! (and played a few years already)
 
I got the save! (and played a few years already)

Great to hear! I expect to update either tonight or tomorrow - only screenshot work and formatting left to be done.