CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Little happens until the end of 1527 although Kazan is forced to concede defeat. After raising additional troops etc I’m now cash flow negative year on year and almost out of money in the treasury so minting will resume shortly.
This shows one of the places the money is going, I’m also adding some barques and builing up another stack in the Balkans. I hope that once I’ve got the Horde pushed back to Perm (i.e. the long proposed stop line) I’ll need fewer troops in that area as time reduces nationalism and conversions work through. By January 1528 it’s time again to start adding BB with simultaneous DOWs on the Ottomans and Persia. In both cases I use Holy War - with English cored Luristan being inland I may be able to work Persia’s capital into a zero BB annex. Persia fights alone while the Ottomans are part of a Brunei led coalition along with Kashmir. I’m expecting warfare in East Africa as I’ve previously seen Brunei’s troops fighting in Mutapa.
The Timurids return to the fray in February to turn Anatolia into even more of a mess. They aren’t in a TSC not sure why I previously thought they were although they do have quite a few rebels popping up.
A lot of currently unanswerable questions here. I could do with pushing straight East from Iraq but I don’t want anyone else to grab all those potentially BB free provinces to the West. No decisions needed for a while so I’ll play it by ear.
Peace with Persia - August 1528
Another province pushed eastwards - I’d like to discover the new TI without having to march into it.
Peace with the Ottomans - September 1528
Hopfully they’ll survive a few years before forming an easily digestible snack in the mid 1530s. Brunei accepts white peace soon after to leave me at war with the Golden Horde and the Timurids.
BB is now 9.72 / 24.00 falling at 2.10 points a year.
March 1529 - Land 18 one of the key levels. I plan to go Maurician as soon as I can work an opportunity! Always change on the last day of a month so you spend less time with zero morale troops - safer as there’s less opportunity for your stacks to get wiped by either enemies or rebels.
Mid-summer 1530
Untroubled progress against the Timurids, my Land 18 armies swat aside their Land 5 forces. I’m now looking at pushing into TI.
War with Mali - July 1530
Very straightforward, I need to start adding West African BB - I’m concerned I’ll run out of Holy War targets in the next couple of decades. There’s no screaming urgency here I intend to gain war score by letting Mali’s stacks come to me and hammering them. Yemen is quickly peaced out for a few ducats by storming the capital while my best general invades the Malian coastal provinces.
November and a very interesting pop-up!
Not something I’ve seen before.
June 1531 Boundary dispute with Aragon
By the start of 1532 BB is under three so I buy Brunei out of my war with Mali. War score jumps from 23 to 42 - a bit better for grabbing some BB. This war, much like the ongoing slow-mo invasion of the Timurids and the skirmishing with the Horde, is utterly dull.
Nogai reappears in May 1532 just after I pick up three points of inflation through the ever popular corruption event. It only takes weeks to peace them out again. Kazan returns late in the year and the Timurids have a tribal succession crisis. Now a TSC when you’ve seven settlements running in that country is not entirely comfortable…
I keep my ruler once again at the start of 1533, can’t waste Diplo 9. BB is very low now down to 0.80 / 24.00 falling at 2.10 a year but I’m ready for peace with Mali I just want to get my unit’s a bit closer to home to avoid too much attrition.
Peace with Mali - March 1533
By May it’s time to try a little plan…
But before that here’s the Timurid Empire
Nicely done against Mali, you got pretty far into the TI in one conflict. The Holy War situation looked worrying indeed before opening that front.
