The Historic Inevitabilty of Epic Failure

I find that in all my large expansion games production far outweights trade around 1700 and until the end by 2:1. For this reason I have been very sucessful with investing in +production buildings and the Smithian NI instead of boosting trade.

This seems to be the case for big empires even when you own most of the COTs. Anyone else has this experience?

I notice that you hardly ever use (or even build for that matter) artillery, in any of your AARs. Could you explain why?

uat2d said:

Why go through all that trouble, when we could simply park all his doomstacks near the cores with Milan and another to make a run at Bohemia's capital?

Look at all his land, he can field a massive army if he wants. All he needs is to secure the borders, leave some guys to quell rebellions and hit Milan hard. Perhaps force them to release a country or two if he can afford it before peacing them out, see if he breaks them in the process. Then he can still go to Bohemia, fight them a little and take it from there. Sure, easier said than done, but it's not impossible, the hard part is certainly behind for him.

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Because, depending on the situation, the trouble of fighting two limited wars (one to retain cores and the other to take them when there's opportunity) might be less than the trouble of fighting one "world war". It's also easier to do without hindering progress elsewhere.

I get the sense that his economy still has its limits, so going for a massive operation like that would mean stopping the Holy Wars for the duration of shipping the men to Europe, fighting the war and then shipping them back. I'm not sure if that's feasible as getting enough BB to last so long would cripple his cardinals as well as the Boundary Disputes. Alternatively, prioritize troops instead of infrastructure and the navy - doesn't sound smart in the long run.

Not to mention that, unless he can indeed put that massive army together for the conflict, sealing everything from invaders would be a pain with the long borders that would result from fighting against practically all of Europe, especially since Bohemia isn't going to just stand around while he's working on Milan. With his current (I think?) ADM 3 ruler that could lead to a WE disaster to some extent.

It all hinges on how willing Milan and the would-be alliance leader (Bohemia?) are to sign peace. If a quick "grab cores, occupy capitals, sign peace" war is possible, then sure, go ahead and take the land now. But if they're more stubborn then I'm not sure fighting such a major war now is the smart thing to do. Note, I'm not saying that it isn't possible to do, but it might be more efficient to delay until an opportunity comes.

Here's hoping such opportunity comes soon so there's no need to worry about cores expiring.

Nephilia said:

I notice that you hardly ever use (or even build for that matter) artillery, in any of your AARs. Could you explain why?

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He prefers getting there fastest, to getting there with the mostest.

I reckon he would be able to deal with the heavy mob in Europe a lot more easily if every front included an artillery heavy army but its possible that playing on VH makes it pan out differently. I'd have lots of artillery in 1/3 to 1/2 of my armies on the Milan/Bohemia fronts and time marching to battles so that the artillery army was there a day earlier and the others came in on its flanks.

However, strategically its best not to fight them yet, and if you don't have the force to do it, then you don't get tempted to do the wrong thing and speed is much more important than firepower for trampling the Asiatics. The faster you march to the next province, the faster you storm it. I'm quite sure its possible to get better results in Europe than he does, but I never manage to match his speed going E because I get distracted by all those opportunities in Europe.

Malurous and the Arch Mede are right. There is no need to fight a European war right now. The cores won't start running out for quite some time. There is a chance of Bohemia and Milan getting into war against each other; that would be an opportunity PrawnStar would surely take. I think a war might come in handy as a distraction should Milan take QftNW early. So, patience.

As for the military odds. PrawnStar seems to think he will lose a war against Milan and Bohemia but I'm not so sure. (Neither is Chief Ragusa.) He's pulled off impossible victories before. His method of withdrawing while threatening forces the enemy to maintain large stacks, running up attrition and WE. Prawn's fast armies (without cannons) can usually outrun direct enemy attacks and can often quickly retake lost territory (before enemy garrisons grow too large). In the short run, PrawnStar loses some territory to occupation; in the long run, his enemies get exhausted. Note that this strategy only works as long as his armies are faster than his enemies', hence his reluctance to employ artillery. Anyway, why take the risk when there's time to wait for a better opportunity?

Just a general observation - apart from immense patience and a solid knowledge of the game, one reason why PrawnStar is so successful in these insane challenges is that he's smart about his wars. On most occasions, he "wins first and then goes to war", so to speak. Of course, he can pull off those impressive victories against all odds (think Audacity) but I rarely see him choose to go for such a war just for the heck of it.

Barsoom said:

As for the military odds. PrawnStar seems to think he will lose a war against Milan and Bohemia but I'm not so sure. (Neither is Chief Ragusa.) He's pulled off impossible victories before. His method of withdrawing while threatening forces the enemy to maintain large stacks, running up attrition and WE. Prawn's fast armies (without cannons) can usually outrun direct enemy attacks and can often quickly retake lost territory (before enemy garrisons grow too large). In the short run, PrawnStar loses some territory to occupation; in the long run, his enemies get exhausted. Note that this strategy only works as long as his armies are faster than his enemies', hence his reluctance to employ artillery.

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Setting aside the fact that I don't think such a war should be fought, I agree that I'd expect him to win it. At the same time, I wouldn't be shocked if it ended up being a tad ugly.

The reason is that in order for the method you describe to work properly, his country can't be messed up during the "PrawnStar loses some territory to occupation" stage. I fear that, with so many enemies and such a long border, too many provinces would be lost, leading to high WE. He'd most likely grind out a victory, but the war would be bad for his nation in the long run.

Oh and I agree with The Arch Mede that efficient warfare of this sort would require killstacks with artillery, whereas in Asia etc. it isn't necessary. EDIT: Oops, I suppose I should stop posting essays now.

Malurous said:

EDIT: Oops, I suppose I should stop posting essays now.

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That goes for both of us. I couldn't resist the temptation to intervene in the military discussion, even after arguing that this war should not be fought. So, my second point is moot in view of my own first point and I missed a great opportunity to keep my mouth shut. We agree on all the essentials.

Barsoom said:

Sound plans. The only drawback I can see is leaving Khorasan to the Timmies, who will surely be forced to release / lose against rebels / suffer a succession crisis.

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Aren't they surrounded by the English at the moment and sub-10 provinces? That would cut down on adverse events happening, though nothing is as unstable as a bunch of nomads that are so behind the times that it makes the original Gutenburg printing press seem futuristic in comparison. Still, I think that PrawnStar would rather see them gone now that their goal of eating Khorasan has been accomplished. It's just that there's the New World colonisation as well, and having countries go bonkers over there is rather more threatening. You can only spend colonists once - here's to hoping for a lot of random level 2 colony events.

Long-time lurker here - I really like how you take a country, push it to the limits and when the limits of what could be called sane are reached, you just plough on anyway. (The Golden Horde game comes to mind). Hopefully you won't fall short this time, even if your test game fell massively short.

PrawnStar said:

A reminder to all, it's time for the second round of the AARland Awards 2012.


Go vote, your forum needs you !



​

@Malurous, thought I'd try subtle...​

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Nice ... I'll try something like that myself

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The Arch Mede said:

He prefers getting there fastest, to getting there with the mostest.

I reckon he would be able to deal with the heavy mob in Europe a lot more easily if every front included an artillery heavy army but its possible that playing on VH makes it pan out differently. I'd have lots of artillery in 1/3 to 1/2 of my armies on the Milan/Bohemia fronts and time marching to battles so that the artillery army was there a day earlier and the others came in on its flanks.

However, strategically its best not to fight them yet, and if you don't have the force to do it, then you don't get tempted to do the wrong thing and speed is much more important than firepower for trampling the Asiatics. The faster you march to the next province, the faster you storm it. I'm quite sure its possible to get better results in Europe than he does, but I never manage to match his speed going E because I get distracted by all those opportunities in Europe.

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Is he stuck with 5.1 or does he use beta patches? Since May 28th patch, artillery moves at the same speed of cavalry and infantry.

hygge0302 said:

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A bit too late...

PdoxNewbie said:

hygge0302 said:

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A bit too late...

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Sorry... I thought this was another thread.

True at your low naval techs going over maintenance limit is cheap. Look at Diogani's Venice AAR for the costs associated with higher tech navies neede for the full tariffs for an Empire the size you'll be running over the maintenance limit. It's something to consider later.

First wars are generally the hardest. You took on pretty much everyone and only lost one of your armies in Russia. You've got your cores and more on Burgundy and Bohemia and the key is indeed splitting the enemies up. A CB for intervention is a year and it generally takes that time to get Bohemia to agree peace.Some overlap of wars is important to stop Bohemia re-entering the fight.

ach to anyone else this would be time to go screaming off to the corner of the room

PrawnStar said:

I’m now at war with:

Milan, Naxos, Avignon, Burgundy, Hamburg, the Palatinate, Switzerland, Aquileia, Genoa, Savoy, Murom and Trier
Aragon, Lorraine, Baden and Sicily
Timurids
Khazkh

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not to casually announce:

PrawnStar said:

So there was the answer,

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Aragonese conquest of Gonder?! I can just picture it, the valiant king of Aragorn gathers his puny few regiment army and attacks Valencia, giving some random Spanish kiddo enuogh distraction of English armies, so he can take a jewellery article and venture toward London, in order to hinge it between the mechanical parts of Big Ben, thus freezing the clock, and the British Empire with it...

... looking at the map, getting to the canal would not be impossible, given the amount of Milanese armies, but from there... one does not simply walk into London!