The Historic Inevitabilty of Epic Failure

[PrawnStar]

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Looking around the post war environment I spot something very worrying…



Novgorod has taken Quest for the New World! With no route free eastward into Siberia they’ll set sail and start discovering things - like North America - which will be a problem. Fortunately thirty are at war with Milan already and I have a core on one of their five provinces. This isn’t ideal but 4BB for two provinces to cripple Novgorod’s economy won’t be all bad.

I don’t want a war right now but…



The Swiss are war leaders but every one of their provinces has either fallen or is besieged!

January 1589 brings a Boundary Dispute with Milan while Novgorod is in enough trouble for an acceptable peace.



Peace with Novgorod



I don’t like the 4BB but Novgorod is a lot weaker and with the Milanese still laying siege to the country things are going OK. The Swiss accept a white peace offer soon after to just leave me fighting the nomads; Timurids and Oirats.

November 1589 and peace with the Timurids



Let’s hope Khorasan is wiped out this time!

By March 1590 I’m looking at reclaiming my core Polotsk from Bohemia.



Bohemia is caught up in a long war against Burgundy and allies. While the Emperor is close to winning the strains are telling so it’s a good time to strike! Of course some people just don’t seem to learn…



Storming Alicante a few weeks later does the trick!



Peace with Bohemia comes quickly and easily in June - I didn’t even get to lay siege to Prague!



The next year is very quiet although Macedonia does culturally assimilate to English in September 1591. Milan is taking an age to besiege Novgorod’s three remaining provinces, by the start of 1592 only two have fallen. I’ve been watching Novgorod’s fleet very closely. It’s normally parked in the White Sea but it did venture forth in mid 1591. I tracked it all the way through the North Sea until a pirate spawn in the White Sea caused it to turn around. I don’t think Novgorod has gone exploring… yet. There’s the outline of a plan here to use spies to ‘commission privateer’ to keep Novgorod’s fleet close to home in the future.

June 1592 - Claim on Bohemian Ruthenia



That looks easy to defend once taken.

September 1592 sees isolated Guangxi defect to Wu to give Wu two provinces - but still the same BB cost as when it was an OPM! The Timurids also annexed Khorasan at this time.

March 1593 and another Boundary dispute, barely two months before the next round of wars…



And then Ming force Chagatai to release an OPM Khorasan…



Deep joy.

By May 1593 BB is 6.56 / 24.00 falling at 2.00 a year. Richard Anson has been re-elected for his fifth term. The diplo 9 stat is priceless.

Ming is DOWed using the Holy War CB.



Murom is DOWed using Reconquest for the core on Yaroslavl. They have no allies.

Tibet is DOWed using Reconquest to annex; Punjab, Korea and Manchu all join in.

June and wars successfully concluded with Murom and Tibet although te Tibetan war leader is Manchu so the wider war continues.



The Oirat province is settled in October as I start to make headway pushing into the high value coastal provinces of Ming.

Peace with Ming - September 1594



Post war Far East



BB is 14.74 / 24.00 falling at 2.00 a year.

November 1594 and Milan finally annexes Novgorod.



Alt-history Scandinavia; better dressed with better beer, the mobile phones and self assembly furniture aren’t all that.

[PdoxNewbie]

Looking good. Hopefully, you'll pull it off.

[Yelnoc]

That is a really bizarre Scandinavia.

[Malurous]

Heh, that pesky Khorasan...

Yup, the Russian minors are a pretty high QFTNW risk. I'm not sure how AI Idea selection works these days, but they used to be Netherlands level risk IIRC. Nice of Milan to handle Novgorod for you.

[Barsoom]

Nice of Milan to handle Novgorod for you.

This. For a while there I was worried you'd eventually have to take expensive European provinces to handle the problem. Fortunately there don't seem to be many Russian minors left.

East Asia is working out well. Good progress against Ming, I think you're ahead of schedule.

[Franconian]

What a cut kitten.

I hope Bohemia hurries up and forms the HRE. I think your game is now rather boring.

[rustic]

That Scandinavia is an affront to my inherent Scandinavian sense of clean, bright design as well as to my vague and cloudy nationalistic pride! Looking forward to when the stag parties of the English horde will invade the chilly beaches of the Baltic sea, enjoying the algal bloom and the polar bears.

P.S. Been reading up on "Rebels without a pause", 90 pages to go (vacation, yay!). When realising how different some of the game mechanics seems to have worked then, and the "retro" look of the maps, it tbh feels way older than its age of two years. D.S.

[Dewirix]

Nice to see your feeling better.

I hadn't realised you'd gone so far into China proper. Looks like Bohemia is the only major threat left standing, and you've knocked them around enough times I have little doubt that when you can bring forces to bear you'll mop them up.

[Arakhor]

Milanese Scandinavia is just silly. Come on, you reds!

[The Arch Mede]

Ruthenia: Not so much "Hard to defend" as "a source of future border disputes"

QftNW = Quest for the Next War.

[uat2d]

If Milan gets QftNW you'll be in trouble.

[Ricardo Rolo]

Well, Khorasan just refuses to stay dead

I'm uat2d ,though: Milan will give you trouble sooner or later, and being part of the empire, it will bring Bohemia behind. To be honest I'm surprised that Milan has not picked up QftNW yet ( instead of Novgorod ). I'm sure you already have some contingency plans for that, though

[Edlar89]

Welcome back.

I've never seen such a wierd Scandinavia what with all those non-contiguous blobs of land (which are mostly non-Scandinavian!) Milan's gone nuts

What's the plan with the Himalayan bit of Ming that's now cut-off?

Could you post a world map so we can see your empire in its full glory.

(PS - cute cat!)

[timmy827]

If Milan does get QFTNW soon, what's the plan? Presume that it is impossible to strip away all their coastline ASAP (too much BB in one go even if it was within warscore limits), and the Novgorod solution won't help that much as no one else in gonna annex Milan in 10 years with just a little push.

What are the relative fleet sizes and naval tech of you vs. Milan?

[Taylor]

If Milan does get QFTNW soon, what's the plan? Presume that it is impossible to strip away all their coastline ASAP (too much BB in one go even if it was within warscore limits), and the Novgorod solution won't help that much as no one else in gonna annex Milan in 10 years with just a little push.

What are the relative fleet sizes and naval tech of you vs. Milan?

There is always the option of having Milan release its coastal provinces as independent states. Though in the long run that might be annoying too, since he has to annex those OPMs later on anyway.

[Barsoom]

If Milan does get QFTNW soon, what's the plan? Presume that it is impossible to strip away all their coastline ASAP (too much BB in one go even if it was within warscore limits), and the Novgorod solution won't help that much as no one else in gonna annex Milan in 10 years with just a little push.

What are the relative fleet sizes and naval tech of you vs. Milan?

Good question. I think there wouldn't necessarily be a problem if Milan took QftNW around 1650; after he's exhausted Holy War, PrawnStar could just go for the America's himself. Ideally, without prior map spread he would have 50 years to build up his colonial empire before interference. If anyone took QftNW earlier, he would be forced to move. Best option is something like the operation against Novgorod, cutting them down to size in Europe so he wouldn't have to jump ahead in the Americas. But as you and Taylor say, Milan is probably too big for that.

The second option is to intercept or distract explorers. Catch 'em with the fleet while at war or stir up pirates in hopes that they'll return to clean up. Novgorod's turned around to fight pirates, so that might work for a bit.

The third alternative is to start on America earlier than originally planned. England could settle the coasts to prevent others colonizing. Colonial range is a factor. Milan's ports are mostly in Italy and Scandinavia so it might be they don't reach very far. In any case, colonizing the costs to seal off the New World is expensive but not BB-costly if England gets there first. To protect them during war, there is the fleet; again, expensive but it doesn't cost BB as long as Milan doesn't seize a colony. The biggest problem would be to prevent them from taking lands off the native nations. That's exactly the situation in east Africa where Mutapa needs to be sealed off from Brunei, only the American natives' coastline is much longer so it would require more Colonial CB conquests before their proper time.

The closer to 1650, the better the third option looks. With luck, PrawnStar might even make it there. If I'm not mistaken, Milan is not coded as an early or second-wave explorer. The Russians are, as it's usually useful for settling Siberia.

[Athalcor]

Yay! Beer!

Any reason why Wu still exists?

[dragonizer]

When you take Ruthenia. Time to build a iron tower on highest mountain.
Any chance nomads will eat west end of Ming?

With low BB the conversion of last province of religious group IE -hindu, Orthodox. etc.
Probably wont have a big impact on stability cost. 30 to 100 gold maybe.
When playing IN and earlier versions with BB over 500. Will drop stability cost by 800+ gold.
Highest drop I had 2,675 gold with BB 1,055.

[Chief Ragusa]

Milan was most helpful removing Novgorod. Only Murom of the Russian minors or any Russians left and Milan will probably deal with them. Khorasan just refuses to die. Who'd have thought the French would be in Asia?

You secured more provinces than I thought you would off Ming. Another war and you'll isolate the capital and give yourself a border with Manchu. Hopefully Hindustan will swallow Ceylon and Maldives and you'll have a fleet that can take the islands. Given your experience with Khorasan, this will be a testing experience.

How did Aquileia get to Provence? Did you consider vassilizing Aragon? You've that OPM muslim state in the Baltic to raise Holy War against. The Scandinavian states sometimes take Quest, too. Bohemia and Milan ought to take care of them.

You're making excellent progress against the Far East. Brunei doesn't seem to be taking the fight to Japan. The Oirat Horde ought to revolt away from Ming - more nomads to settle.

Ruthenia is a good target and borders plenty of provinces and you've proved able to extract your cores without too much difficulty or is Milan's superior fleet causing you to pause in attacking them?

The most impressive thing is how you are doing so well in the Far East with so few troops.

[sprites]

With their usual routes of expansion blocked , Milan and Bohemia turned to Scandinavia ... interesting!