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NiallH

Recruit
May 13, 2012
6
0
Hi all,
so to introduce myself I am a completely blind gamer who has always been fascinated with historical grand strategy games, but has never been able to play them. Unfortunately it appears that adapting even a relatively simple game in this genre would be far too much work for a very small reward. So I'm wondering if anyone might be interested in helping me play one of paradox's grand strategy titles such as EU4 or Victoria 2 collaboratively over Skype. The details of this would need to be figured out later, as I understand that it would not be easy, but it would be boiled down to the two of us discussing the goings on in the game and making decisions accordingly. Watching lets plays and reading AARs is great, but I often have trouble understanding what's going on and would enjoy a sense of agency as well as a real understanding of how the game works. So if someone is interested, please send me a personal message and I'll give you my Skype contact info. Anyways, thanks for your consideration and happy gaming.
 
I wouldn't mind having a go at explaining it to you. But I'm curious ,how do you watch letsplays and read AAR's ?
You can add me on skype, burny26 is the name.
My avatar is a shaven cat, pun intended :p
 
For letsplays on youtube, I just listen to the commentary and do my best to figure out what's going on. As for reading aars, or most things for that matter, I use screen reading software. As long as the text is typed, and the software recognizes the ascii code, I should be able to read it. But it's kind of complicated. It treats everything in a paradox game like an image, so I can't read any of the text in one of those, for instance. Exactly why I can use it with some applications and not at all with others I have only a vague idea.
 
I wouldn't mind having a go at explaining it to you. But I'm curious ,how do you watch letsplays and read AAR's ?
You can add me on skype, burny26 is the name.
My avatar is a shaven cat, pun intended :p

Inspiring to hear. Hope this goes well!

/shams
 
Just a friendly note to pds about how it is going.
We just played for 3 hours and we had a blast. Discussing strategies and planning who we are going to finish of next. Really fun,we will be doing this for a long time. :)
 
If you know anyone else in a similar situation, encourage them to post as well.
If you want we can even set you up a community group to match up partners.
Anything we can do to help or facilitate just let me know.
 
Indeed, it really is great to hear that you're trying to enjoy the Paradox games in your own way with someone relating you what is happening and you're the one actually making the plans and guiding your country.

burny, mind giving us a general notion of what happened during those three hours? What game you played, what country did you pick and how you fared against your opponents? Cheers.
 
Indeed, it really is great to hear that you're trying to enjoy the Paradox games in your own way with someone relating you what is happening and you're the one actually making the plans and guiding your country.

burny, mind giving us a general notion of what happened during those three hours? What game you played, what country did you pick and how you fared against your opponents? Cheers.

Well,first thing i asked niall was if he had any notion on how the world looks.
And he has a good notion on how western european nations are located to one another. England across the channel, followed by France, with next to them Germany ,Poland and Russia.

This line is actually good enough to start from since it kind of works like the trunk of a tree. Every nation that needs to be localised is measured vs the location of this line. And as time and repetition passes it will be easier for niall to visualise it.


So needless to say we started a western europeangame as Spain/Castille .I chose Spain for several reasons.
It is one of those countries that is fit for any kind of game being naval, land, trade, colonial, religious...
This gives a higher degree of interactivity and discussion about what could be done next.
Spain is by far one of easiest nations to visualise. It's a square-like peninsula divided into three vertical parts, portugal,castille and aragon. It has a bottleneck to the northeast with France and a strait with Africa.

To keep it easy to follow I suggested to focus on conquering Iberia. This will enable us to withstand the BBB in the pyrenees in case they chose to invade us and the repetition of telling where these nations are because of our constant warring with them, aid in making it easier to remember on how spain looks like. Plus later it will be obvious where those darn portuguese - aragonese rebels are standing.

Our game itself hasn‘t advanced that much yet since I explained the first hour and a half on how the mechanics of the game work. And due to PDS imaginative naming of the technology, tech was probably terribly confusing.
Having three general admin, diplo and mil tech tabs + admin, diplo and mil tech groups with a diplo tech ideagroup...:confused:

After having explained the general mechanics we started our strategydiscussion. Since France and England are busy in the hundred years war we calculated that they would be unable to help either portugal or aragon. We chose scotland for ally as a counterweight for any future wars with the english.

Since portugal has low legitimacy and prestige we arranged for a royal marriage, followed by a successionwar.
As it stands now,we have occupied portugal completely, whilst the warscore slowly ticks up to 84.
The english have joined the portuguese but due to their struggle in France ,we haven't seen any armies landing in Iberia.
We even sunk a small fleet of 2 big ships and 4 light ships,before rushing back into our ports since their doomfleet was rapidly approaching.
 
That is great to hear. Hope you continue the journey! :D
 
Please let us know if you play again and how that turns out :)
/shams
 
Wow, this is awesome. Thank you burny26 for helping naill!!!!!
 
That is great to hear. Hope you continue the journey! :D

Wow, this is awesome. Thank you burny26 for helping naill!!!!!

Please let us know if you play again and how that turns out :)
/shams


Thank you for the kind words :) And yes we are continuing ,we have forced portugal into a union and have already completly occupied the Aragonese provinces in Iberia.
We are going to try and take 3 provinces from them to annex them bit by bit.
Granada is being besieged as well, and Morocco is being blocked of by our fleet in gibraltar.
So the game is going pretty smooth.
Ill post a screenie ,after the next session.
 
This is really quite heartwarming, it could make a very special AAR.
 
Most positive thread ive read today!
Good luck!
 
An AAR of this would be most excellent. Both for general interest, as well as a primer for others wishing to try something similar.
 
Cool. You sound like you´re doing a great job with this. :)

This is really quite heartwarming, it could make a very special AAR.

An AAR of this would be most excellent. Both for general interest, as well as a primer for others wishing to try something similar.

Again , I appreciate the kind words gentlemen.
Though the actual playing of EU is different while you are narrating as much as possible, it doesn't offer anything different than other AAR's if this was put up for writing.
Unless I am missing something you are seeing?

As the situation now stands. We have been in very tight spots.
After the annexation of Granada and entire Aragon we have been smashing rebels the entire time. Depleting our manpowerpool in the meantime.
Since we were running at a slight deficit with half army maintenance, we made the decision to rack up loans and invest into temples and constables to boost our income.
Which worked since we are generating approximately 13 ducats a month. Our inflation however kept rising (to 13%) because we not only needed loans to pay for buildings ,we also needed loans to buy mercenaries, coring Aragonese provinces is a rebelsome job.

And if that wasn't enough ,France has become the BBB. It has annexed its last vassal and has even taken some burgundian/austrian provinces. Because of this we have chosen to take the quality ideagroup since having as much as MP as France would be neigh impossible. After having fully explored it ,we were lagging behind in general military tech and frantically started to use mil points to get back on par with BBB.
Sure enough ,they declared war for navarre (which we peacefully annexed earlier) and they pummeled us. We beat their stacks one by one ,but they were sieging so fast we had to give in and release valencia to Aragon.

Since we are predetermined to bolster our defences for a very likely war with France later ,we have chosen the economic ideas to get those loaninteresting ideas,with the lowered inflation ,interest and active inflationreduction option. And use the new loans to build as many armories and regimental camps as possible.
First we wanted to let Portugal take on the new World and integrate them within 150 years or so,but we need to have their resources NOW. So from the moment our relationship hits +190 we shall start integration. This would bring us to a total MP of 80 000 ,which is decent enough to defend ourselves. After the integration a second major army will be placed on defensive duty in the pyrenees at all time to ensure a fully closed Iberia.

Rio de Oro and the province to the south have been colonised as well by us. We intend to reach the cape.

Our territory:
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1101417742990070685/D916365C4A85A96D6C39A2A63A6012166878156A/
Europe:
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/1101417742990143649/F64A66AB615B62D1D12423CA9AA676EC96C4DB16/
 
I would have suggested that "as an aar" you would talk about the experience of playing as much as what happened. After all that is what makes your story so unique.