OK! I decided to read through my updates to this point and... they sound kinda crazy. Rather than try to mention all of the various activities as they happen, I'll just try to paint the mental image for you and then give updates more broadly on what exactly I'm attempting to do at any given point in time. I'll try to just mention more serious battles going into greater detail on specific fights rather than just vaguely mentioning many with few details about any of them.
Mental Image: I'm almost always at war with 1+ hordes which is where most of the serious fighting is going on, and generally at war with 10+ other nations who are attacking from the sea, typically in small groups with the largest stacks being around 13k or so, but most being 5k or less. These naval landing forces are easy to destroy, it's just the annoyance and time required to move my armies all over in order to both kill Hordes and kill off the attackers arriving by sea. I'm also trying to kill their naval transports, with a pretty high level of success. I'm being careful not to take on too much WE, which I'm getting mostly from attrition. When my BB is low, I grab more territory, and give white peace most of the time if it's high.
Now, let's get to the update!
1441-1450!
In 1441, I was at war with TO and their allies, Burgandy and their allies, Algeria and allies, and Tims. Burgandy was the only nation with a navy that was dangerous out of those, so I timed my naval engagements to take place about 1 month after they'd drop off troops so they'd be far enough away to not give chase when my navy put to sea. I tried to engage enemy naval forces in home waters whenever possible so I could dock in a hurry if I had to.
I had begun to detect a pattern to the AI's naval invasions. They'd always go for Morea first. If a force was already there, they'd invade Achaea. 3rd would be Dalmatia, 4th Albania, and so on. The order varried slightly from nation to nation as far as where they'd attack first. Rather than running troops all the way from Georgia or someplace, I decided to station one stack in Achaea and a second in Bosnia, next to Dalmatia. As long as I killed the invading stacks fast, the next stacks would again land first in Morea and second in Dalmatia. With forces ready to counter attack in both locations, I could effectively deal with any and all naval invaders.
I also noticed that the AI MUST block all troops trying to cross the straight, like a crackhead after some crack. Even a battered navy running after defeat would turn around and move to block the passage even if it was just one unit of infantry from one of my vassals trying to cross. So! I built a unit of infantry in 'The Center of the World' Aka Istanbul/Thrace, whatever. I would send this unit across when enemy naval forces were in the area, and draw them in! As long as there were no Burgundian, Castilian, Portugese, or English fleets around, my navy would then destroy them! (Err I don't remember when I started fighting the Spaniards exactly, but it might be in this update.)
I was beating the Tims pretty well. I would go into their territory to finish off retreating stacks, but then my forces would return. With never ending war, I had to be very careful not to get too much WE from attrition! More than anything, RR was my biggest enemy, and revolts + multiple war fronts always had my troops spread thin.
In 1442, my army was suddenly in trouble on the Tim front. After a period of small skirmishes, the Timurids came in a massive attack with many stacks piling up against my forces. My original 10k force retreated with 32k Tims giving chase. I sent a 10k support stack to back them up, but instead they just waited with the first army to retreat to them so they wouldn't get wiped, and a 13k stack that had been fighting the Mams started moving East to help as well. More Tim stacks were moving into the area and would also join the fight.
Forces in this fight: OE: 10k original stack, backed by a second 10k stack and then a 13K stack. Tims: Multiple stacks totalling 56k. This shot is the beginning of the fight.
It took some time for the OE and Tim forces to reach Qarabagh, giving both sides time to recover lost morale. The Tims broke off their attack seeing my advantaeg with the additional 13k force moving towards Qarabagh, so I stopped their advance. While my attention was elsewhere, the Tims again marched on Qarabagh, catching me by surprise with their arrival.
My troops were holding their own in the fight, 20k vs 32k, with me having a combined 7 point shock advantage from better terrain and generals. The Tims were not going to go down easily however. They had two additional stacks moving towards Qarabagh which would bring their total to 56k. I again started moving my 13k stack towards the province.
The Tims took rediculous losses! Their forces fled in three directions, and my armies chased, wiping out one group and forcing the other two into retreat again, then chasing and wiping them out as well. War with Qara was back on as this fight was taking place. After paying me tribute for 5 years, they hadn't raised much of an army.
After this crushing victory there was a lack of enemy forces in the immediate area, so I assaulted three provinces and started colonizing two of them. 92% and 97% chance to succeed, but of course, one failed. My luck in this game has sucked with colonies and missionaries! Still, I kept sending them.
More Tim armies would come, but it would be a long time before another 'big' battle on that front. My troops spent most of their time here sieging Qara provinces. In the West, I just kept killing enemy navies and the armies they landed.
I'd been planning to attack Mams as soon as my truce expired so I could -finally- use my mission CB for 1 BB/province! I kept getting into wars with them via their allies, so had yet to really put a dent in them. Right as I was checking to see when the truce would expire, they declared war. FINE! Be that way!!!
I sent in my 10k force to attack their puny 6k army! Myahaha! I turned my attention to a naval engagement for abotu 20 seconds only to notice my 10k army was fighting 26k, not 6k. Crap. I retreated. They chased. I sent my navy over after it killed the mightly one cog enemy fleet -JUST- in time to save my army from getting destroyed. Cant chase me onto a ship. HA! I know, cheap tactic but hey, I'm tryin to fight the whole world here! I need my armies alive!!
So I moved over more forces, destroyed the Mam forces and started sieging, along with my vassals. I kept a close watch on the Tims to see what trouble they might send my way and kept building up colonies... but they were taking too long! I needed them soon, before GH war restarted or I would have a very hard time protecting them.
I made peace with Qara without enough warscore to demand tribute, and that would haunt me later! -NEVER- fail to finish off your enemy after handing them a total defeat! If you do... well, you'll see when we get to that point.
My armies were still sieging the Mams and trying to protect colonies in Timmytown in the East and killing invasion forces in the West when the timer ticked down and GH war was back on. I needed more time! I WP'd Burgandy. I started moving forces Northward in a hurry, waiting for the GH to rush across the border. No GH came. They were busy it seemed! I peaced out. Yay! Except I'd be in a world of pain later.
The Tims and GH could both field armies several times the size of my own, but because I kept severely thrashing them each war, they never fully recovered when the truce would expire. Next time, that would not be the case!
I continued to face-stomp Tims and Mams. Tim armies actually dropped below 30k at one point, causing several Indian nations to break tribute and declare war!
My truce with England expired and the declared war! MMkay, whatever. Bring troops for my armies to crush. DIEEEE!!!
Castile and Portugal have honored their alliance with England and are now at war with you.
oh.
And by the way, this. Just to make things more interesting!!
I was vexxed by the Spaniards!! I hate you Castile. HATE!!! With all my nerd rage power, I will kill you for this. I will kill them all!!!
Tims! Make peace! Horde say: No! We don't like you. You're mean!
Sigh.
Big naval forces! Many troops. I kill them all, but it requires moving more troops to the Balkans. WE was right around 11 or so, so I was having a moderate number of revolts.
My Balkans defense strategy was still working, oddly better with fewer countries landing bigger stacks, they were sieging fewer provinces at a time, making it easier to kill them.
The fight with the Mams had been somewhat weird. They'd send lots of 1-2 k armies to siege land I'd captured. I'd chase them down. Then randomly, a huge stack would show up and I'd have to regroup and take them out.
They also didn't want to make peace on terms equal to the warscore, so they had a decent sized army hiding somewhere. I finally went searching for it and killed them.
With the destruction of 80% of all their forces, the Mams finally agreed to pay for their crimes against the OE with land!
Soon after this, both of my colonies in Timland flipped to me. I was awesome!!! The English and Spanish troops died from massive suckiness! Portugal forces... Laugh!
Soon, they would sue for peace, offering me mighty gifts and... stuff! I didn't know when, but any day now, I was sure the offers would come along with begging for my forgiveness! I may have been overly optimistic, but I'm a glass half full kinda guy.
And then Brandenburg + a bunch of nobody chumps declared war. Whatever.
England offered white peace. DECLINED!!! I KEEL YOU, SUCKAFOO! AND YO SPANISH HOMIEZ!
I wished later I would have taken that, but it's funny how hindsight works.
January 1450, I get a regency. Bah. Regencies suck, and regencies with bad stats really suck. My WE started rising slowly and hit 12 at one point. A couple weeks after that I lost a point of stability, and a couple months after that, war with GH. Mmmkay, forces deployed to GH border to go kill and AAAH!! Crap.
There was a LOT of them. They just kept comming in! A 3rd provinced flipped to me from Tims and I moved my Tim border forces all to the North.
The map was looking something like this:
Things started getting pretty dicey at this point. I was very outnumbered in the north, having given GH 10 years to recover. With the constant flow of naval invaders, I had two stacks pinned in the Balkins to defend my coast. Soon, I was going to have to make some tough choices.
I killed a couple GH stacks, but they were quickly replaced. My western army had bad die rolls and almost got wiped. I had to pull a stack from coastal defense to support my retreating army.
And things would get worse worse in the next few years, but you gotta wait for the next update to see exactly how bad they got.
-So, you guys like it better with more text and fewer screens, or should I let the screens do the talking?