I am the King of Naples!

Okay. I've taken quite a longer break than I anticipated and I need to clear some things up:

- Can the save still run with the latest version and after installing Wealth of Nations.

And, most importantly:

- Do I want to continue / is there any interest.

This started out as a mainly gameplay AAR with humor elements. Lately in this game I ran into the problem that no nation on Earth could possibly be my equal and frankly, even a wide coalition declaring war on me every few years would not be a threat to Naples anymore. Looking back, the game has simply lost all challenge and I've been cruising through wars since I wiped out the Ottoman Empire. The comment above partially points this out, but let me assure you I don't cheat. The fact is that I'm human and a competent player. I know which battles to reinforce and I keep stacking bad multipliers upon my enemies.

Meanwhile, the same events keep repeating over and over and its getting increasingly hard to not just re-use the same jokes. I've been leaving out more and more events because of this.

There are three options:

1: Call it quits here. Either because the save won't work or because it has run its course.
2: Continue to 1744 or until I cover the entire Mediterranean
3: Go all the way to 1844, probably with a little less detailed updates covering larger periods of time.

I need a few days to think it over.

GulMacet said:

You will manage to diplovassalize Aragon during the war with the French, and then return their provinces to them. Also, you will take some colonies.

Click to expand...

I didn't manage to vassalize Aragon, but I probably could have >.<. Please forgive me for being a wee bit rusty. And not in the cool, True Detective way :-(.

In my defense, they did start out joining some random colonial war.

GreatUberGeek said:

Probably take some colonies, and some minor provinces in Europe given away.

Click to expand...

I should've made it release Brittany. Hindsight is 20/20.

DensleyBlair said:

I'll offer that you'll take Australia and their Indian holdings, while probably getting them to cede territory to some Rhenish minors. Maybe some monetary compensation as well?

Aside from that, another entertaining update. Good especially to see that the foundations have been laid for further Balkan expansion. That border does need improving.

Click to expand...

Money is always good, and after the update screwed over all of my fancy tax income buildings, they are quite sorely needed!

And yeah, I need to annex Serbia and finish circling the Black Sea.

Warlord Skorr said:

I think you plan to connect to Toulouse before diplo-annexing it by taking Provence as well as their Australian and Indian territories. Next war you take Avignon and the two provinces north of it to shore up the border.

I got the achievement when I had a 6/5/5 ruler, so I have no idea why you didn't.

Click to expand...

I really want to, but the update messed up my relations with Toulouse so much that I really don't want AE on top of every other negative modifier I suddenly got with them.

fordisbunk said:

Colonies in Australia and the Indian province plus force them to release a nation in France proper.

Click to expand...

Thought about taking the Indian province, decided against it to avoid overextension for a province of so little value.

DennisRoos said:

You'll probably take their eastern colonies, as well as try to take their provinces on the Mediterranean Sea, to further your control there and connect to Iberia. That war with Muscovy was surprising. You easily won the land war but lost the naval war! I suppose the advise for generals in your world is: Never fight a naval war in the Black Sea (or India). Are you planning on taking land in the Americas later to take get influence in the Western trade and weaken the western Europeans?

Click to expand...

Nah, the Americas are a lost cause for Naples at this point. I want to keep working on the Mediterranean borders and the Middle East / India. Old world is best world!

BogMod said:

Free all the nations you can.

Click to expand...

I should have. Instead I wasted the warscore on something that turned out to be worthless in the new batch. :-(

PG908 said:

I predict that France will pull FrenchHacks(patent pending), and somehow win. I've seen more absurd wins.

Now to go wonder how I got 12 events contesting my rule of my Crimea because I wasn't violent enough in 10 months. (I'd literally been at war the month before these dam events. How do I even not have economic issues having killed 150,000 residents. Shouldn't that cause problems? I quit that game shortly after realizing it didn't ironman itself properly and I couldn't get the achievement for westernizing. Shame too, I had two six admin rulers and was about to reform my government)

Anyhow, France will manage to do well and give you a run for your money but ultimately lose. Remember to build an unreasonable amount of heavy ships. Its nice. (I had an arms race with the Brits in the multiplayer I mentioned. We ended up near 400 heavy ships when he had enough. I then ruled the seas. It was good for the last year apocalyptic war of doom- 10/10, do reccomend.)

France will also send a colonist to some territory you want that arrives after signing the treaty, and inexplicably avoids native attacks.

Click to expand...

I have a decent amount of modifiers lowering revolt risk, including Patriarch Authority. I really just want to avoid having to put out rebellions all the damn time.

And yeah, France did give a surprising amount of resistance.

Homusubi said:

Just read through the whole thing... Long live the Big Purple Blob!

Click to expand...

May it reach the game end!

angelus512 said:

It's a very nicely done AAR but it's actually quite boring seeing as you win.....essentially every single battle. Which does seem a tad fishy. Some of the battle results are just bizzare. Ottos 1 tech above. Better general -1 river to them and 2x your troops and yet you win?....

Click to expand...

I concede your point about me winning, but please note that I am human, so I'm much better at reinforcing losing battles and picking my fights with the AI... Not so much this session though!

You may also be referring to one of those times where I stormed Constantinople before the AI could gather morale.

Warlord Skorr said:

I would prefer option three. Even an AAR that's hit the steamroller stage can be a fun read(Sforza!!! by Rensslaer for example). Plus, I'm a completionist at heart.

But if you aren't actually enjoying the game itself, go with option one. Writing funny lines around a game is hard enough when you like the way the story is going.

Click to expand...

I did enjoy myself playing this session, but I also felt really weird as I haven't played EUIV at all since the last update and there were some remarkable changes that I did not account for.

JimboJJ26 said:

I'm leaning toward Option 3. This is incredibly entertaining and well written and I'd love to see it continue. I also think it's understandable if you're feeling burnt out on it. In that case, maybe start a new AAR elsewhere in the world.

Click to expand...

I've been thinking about a mildly interactive AAR as Novgorod or another republic, where users could vote on one of certain leaders every 4-8 years with a set of policies they would carry out. But first, this AAR needs to be completed.

DennisRoos said:

I would love to see this continued, but only if you want it. This AAR has been very funny and it made me laugh a lot, but the most important thing is that YOU have fun as well. I understand that the game can become boring when you're so strong, so maybe you can set a crazy endgame goal? Rampage through Europe, Restoring the borders of the old Roman Empire (though that's a bit cliche), colonial domination, be the worst ruler ever and see if you can survive all the revolts you can spark? Just throwing ideas out there. Maybe an alternative goal would make it more fun for you as well. And remember, Hardy Seamen jokes NEVER get old

Click to expand...

I'm already alarmingly close to restoring the Roman borders, though that was never my intention. I 'just' need to rough up Castile, France and England.

GunthiHrod said:

What.... I, in my work.. lost 3 days to read it all...
and now you want to give up???

I Kill you

Click to expand...

I can't do the AAR at all if I'm dead!



I haven't even touched this game since the last update. I assumed that having kept on playing Victoria II would mean that I was familiar enough with Paradox games that I'd do fantastic.

I was wrong. I made some *very* stupid mistakes this session. Playing felt a bit alien, in part because of my extended break, and in part because of all the changes brought about by the new patch/DLC. The fact that I also decided to start playing blindly, without even reading about the new patch, may have been a factor. I must admit I regret taking such a long break even of my personal life demanded it, just once every two weeks would have left me more 'connected' with the game.

In other words: Stupidity ahead!

2. March 1734 - 1. January 1740 part 1/2

Right off the bat, I noticed some problems:

The diplomatic limit had been lowered greatly and all of my vassals were now exceeding my diplomatic limit! I was now at 9/6. Turns out that all those fancy +2 relation limits ideas were now +1 relations limit.


There simply wasn't enough diplomatic juice in the world to keep this love boat afloat.

Along with the fact that annexing a nation now depends on the base tax and costs 15 diplomatic points every month, diplomatic expansion is now a very different beast than when I last left it!

As the game progressed, I started to look some cold realities in the eyes: Keeping all of these vassals would start a dark spiral where the high number of vassals, draining my diplo points, would inhibit annexing more vassals. Even more troublesome, I simply wouldn't be able to get rid of these vassals quickly enough... Because other vassals were draining my diplo points!

Add to this, some of my vassals would now be almost impossible to diplo annex, because of changes to relations now healed so slowly, which would take dozens of years before relations got high enough to do so. Among these were Iraq and, sadly, Toulouse. As the session progressed, I started having some thoughts on how to deal with it.

I also looked up new national decisions based off the update. Nothing special here.



Wait-a-minute.

The Suez Canal.

In the early 1700's.


Filthy, stinking cash is, in fact, a viable currency in over 160 countries, including the Papal State and The United Federation of Mole People.

Yes, Naples going to build that! ... It just didn't have that kind of money on hand and won't anytime soon.

As for national policies: I rejected all of them. I couldn't possibly imagine any of them being worth 1 monarch point every month, unless I was hitting 999 with nothing to spend them on, and even with our gracious god-king on the throne, that's unlikely to happen. Correct me if I'm wrong about these.



On a happier note, I could finally do something I had waited a long time for.


Our own little puppet! D'aww, it thinks it's an independent nation!

I set its tax to 0%. Probably needs all the money it can get.

Meanwhile, a rather mysterious fellow was sneaking around, offering to stalk around the all our maids quarters and peering through their keyholes to gather juicy stories of lust and dusting and combinations of those things.


Turns out one was a secret Japanese maid/ninja agent, and our spying efficiency went through the roof after exposing her.

Now, following my rough re-introduction to the game, I did what any self-respecting normal player who’s just getting re-accustomed to everything would, and promptly declared war on France.


Trial by fire.. I mean, France!

Wargoals:

- Primary: All provinces in Australia for our new colonial puppet.
- No other provinces, not even Provence. I want to see if I can't somehow get Toulouse above 190 relations.
- Just whatever I can get away with as the provinces in Austria is laid under siege.
- Aragon was doing their own little war along with Portugal so I can't diplo vassalize it.

I followed the tried and true method of overrunning the enemy borders with a superior force, this time 4 armies of 42k men. This went rather well with the first battle, as I was transporting troops to Australia and whooping the French navy in the Mediterranean.



This caused a major uproar with the population as they were tired of the old "pick good defensive positions and don't overextend" strategy and wished for more daring tactics.



Tactics such as getting caught up in arranging the Pacific side of things, while leaving unled armies exposed to the regrouped French, getting some 50.000 Neapolitan soldiers slaughtered by my inattention... which, sadly I didn't screenshot, because I had forgotten that using the "go to" options removed the combat report.


That one battle did not end well for me.

Nevertheless, even the senseless slaughter of the Neapolitan soldiers did little to stop the advance. The only thing worse than death in combat for a Neapolitan soldier was the thought of the victorious, smelly, bearded, peg-legged sailors mocking them for their defeat. Therefore, they pushed on... Even without their commander in the end.


Yes I know losses were horrific, but the important thing is that we won...

Right?

Strangely, following those two last battles, a surprising amount of soldiers wanted to sign up for frigates bound for "as far away from this hellhole as possible, even down the smooth and slippery canals of our young colonies".



The rest of the war was relatively undramatic. There was no opposition in Australia as a small landing party slowly making its way across the continent, while France was being besieged by the Neapolitan land forces all the way to Paris. Meanwhile, Spain decided they wanted a piece of the French cake in August 1736.



Even more reason to hurry. By 1737 Nova Trinacria could finally add a huge chunk of a continent, filled with beings that exist only to cause terror.


They would then start having non-stop rebellions for non-accepted culture + lack of cores.

Of course, it took me until the end of the session to realize that receiving someone's trade power is also a diplomatic connection, so I lost even more diplomatic points on that.

END OF PART ONE. part two in an hour as forum rules specify. (Why yes, I am splitting a 6-year update in two, despite talking about covering more territory with fewer updates. I have issues.)

DensleyBlair said:

Good to see you back, Yenzen! And in fine form, too. Another smooth war against France does little to betray your self-admitted rustiness. Nice also to see some colonial nations finally appearing. I do like that particular feature.

Looking forward to more!

Click to expand...

It's good to be back. Going with option 3 here, but trust me on this: It was hardly smooth.

And you still manage to make posts between two parts of an update. Your timing remains uncanny.

As for Nova Trinacria, I'm sad that it didn't get more of the Pacific islands, only New Zealand and Australia proper.

2. March 1734 - 1. January 1740 part 2/2

Not all was quiet as the war raged. First Wallachia came into the fold properly.


Naples can now look forward to enjoying countless increasingly terrible remakes of vampire movies in a few hundred years. Was it worth it?

More power was invested in bearded men in colourful dresses. And when the reactionary segments wanted to take those beautiful things away from them, they were shown the door.


The moon door, ifyouknowwhatImean.

The money sucking merchants wanted to buy titles for a mere 6 months’ worth of income.



Then, rather than stockpiling the surplus from the new harvest, the money was invested into the ACME Foundation for the Elimination of Physics Defying Flightless Feathered Beings.


A worthy cause by any means.

It was only afterwards that I noticed that I had made a huge mistake: Aragon would have accepted diplo vassalization during the war and Naples could have added Aragonese provinces! Damn myself for forgetting to do that. Oh well, Aragon accepted vassalization right afterwards.



Speaking of vassals, Iraq had to be let go. There was no apparent way that Naples could ever get its relations to 190, and Iraq were draining diplomatic points. As noted, I fear that I will be unable to annex Toulouse in a timely manner as well. Granada is a border case.


After releasing Iraq and removing the nearby Neapolitan troops, they had a bunch of reactionary rebels. Somehow that seemed... relevant.

Then, it appeared that my East India Company now had a life of its own. What did they want? More power of course, they're evil. And not the right kind of evil like Naples is, either. It seems that it suddenly gave me a CB on some eastern provinces in the Indian area. They won’t be used just yet, but it's worth nothing in the future.


Seriously, I have no idea how these guys work. I should look it up after posting this.

Meanwhile, the peasants of Ar-Raqqah had taken lessons from Hamid on how to cultivate 'efficiently'


At least they have a river to help explain it.

To make up for his annoyance at losing Iraq for the time being, Antonio I decided to lash out on a small, defenceless nation that Naples had left alone for too long. It was finished by August 1739.


Then, I found out that I can't core provinces without adjacent cores of my own. Lovely.

To celebrate our victory over mighty Funj, a victory monument inspired by Roman mythology was erected in Naples along with some minor architectural changes.


Antonio I is determined to be remembered for more than his godly stats.

Meanwhile, France was still at war with Castile and had gotten itself involved in HRE politics AND was now defending against England's assault on the OBVIOUSLY VERY BRITISH province of Navarra. (It even has a nationalist revolt at the same time)


Crumpets!



My current plan for my vassals is this:

- Raise the four realistic options (Crimea, Georgia, Serbia & Grenada) to 190 and start annexing the three last at once, since Crimea has more leeway in relations thanks to a lot of returned states
- If Toulouse remains impossible to annex, I'll simply keep it around until late game, then annex it by force if need be.
- Overall, I want to annex most of my current vassals before even thinking about adding new ones.



Next potential war targets

- Castile: For the rest of Australia and expanding Aragon... Only Nova Trinacria is dealing with a lot of revolts lately, so maybe this should be delayed a bit.
- Algieria: To vassalize and seize cores from Morocco and Castile. Problem is, I don't have the diplo slot for it and they'd be pissed at Naples diplo annexing the 4 other vassals.
--- Addendum: After annexing my other vassals, getting Algeria to 190 relations should be possible when I return its cores.
- Qara Qoyunlu may be a way to solve the Iraq problem. They still have cores on Iraq. If I could vassalize them and take most of the lands back from Iraq, they would have high enough relations, that I could simply annex them instead.



Other changes

- My tax income has been hit hard by the changes to buildings. My countless stock exchanges have stopped making me a fortune and instead just reduce inflation a bit - and it's way too late to profit from building the government buildings. Naples will probably be vast, but poor, for the rest of the game.
- Likewise, it seems to me that trade income is lower than it was before.
- Thanks to these changes, I only make a little over 100 ducats a month. Production is now my most important source of income!
- Looks as if I can release some Indian land to make room for the East India company. I'll consider the up/down sides before the next session.



News of the world:

- Basics of Neapolitan foreign policy: **** those guys.



- Northern Europe is still all kinds of messed up.



- Japan is pointedly ignoring Korea in favor of the mighty steppes.



- Mighty Kazan has fallen.



- The HRE has re-elected a Bavarian King, despite Austria slowly reasserting itself. Speaking of which, I should knock some sense into both of them.

- If the current king of Sweden dies, there will be a succession war between the UK and France.

- Muscovy has a regency council for a 3-year old kid, which means they will stay off my back for a long time.



Arbitrary quiz

This round

- GulMacet/GreatUberGeek/fordisbunk/DennisRoos +1 for the Australian provinces
- DensleyBlair +3 for the monetary compensation. Couldn't afford overextension in India.
- PG908: +2 for predicting that France would be more trouble than anticipated and while it wasn't France, I just noticed that the Netherlands has touched down in Indonesia ><.

Next round

- France is fighting on three fronts. Which will it win? What’ll the outcomes be?


Afterword:

I'm actually looking forward to doing the next tidbit next week and then having a proper intermission to regain a sense of how the game has progressed, where Naples stands and what to do now with the vast changes that has happened.

DensleyBlair said:

Let's see... France will beat Spain &co., lose to the various HRE states and probably beat Britain – just because we don't really have the best record against them during this period. Together, these wars will probably involve money changing hands, provinces in Northern Spain changing hands, and Navarra staying decidedly un-British.

Aside from that, another great update. Glad to see you're back up and running properly now!

Click to expand...

The thing is: Navarra is still 100% English cultured! England is just trying to save their continental brothers!

Strix97 said:

It's alive! Even after all this time your writing is still as detailed and brilliant as always. Glad to have you back

Click to expand...

Glad to be back!



1. January 1740 - 11. December 1744 (yeah I overshot a month, spilled coffee all over my keyboard.)

Looking up the consequences of assigning provinces to my Indian company, it seemed like a modest boost in trading power and naval force limits while losing manpower and taxes. Since I wasn't making any taxes at all from the area anyway, I decided to give all my Indian provinces to them.

They responded, as most companies would, given any amount of power.


That is, demanding more.

During the entire session, I also found the local overseas Neapolitan foreign legion putting down rebellion after rebellion in the mainland of Nova Trinacria, caused by a mixture of lacking cores, religious differences and cultural penalties. Luckily, towards the end of the session, cores for most provinces had completed, Cosmopolitane had become an accepted culture (making this the alternative history Canada?) and the heathens slowly accepted Orthodox God into their life.


But until then: Kill the heathen, foreign, anti-establishment scum!

In India, another of my protectorates was busy making me more proud with the power of expansionist bloodshed.


It's almost all grown up!

In October 1740, the first of France's wars ended. Nothing changed that I won't be conquer.. I mean, returning to its rightful owners who just happens to be my current/future vassals, later.



In unrelated news, our merchants loved "the good white stuff" from our exotic colonies. You know, the kind that makes nobles go all crazy, because they can afford the high quality, purified shipments. The stuff that could surely be the cause of future wars!


Nothing like a fluffy pillow to rest your head in, amiright?

In lieu of the new "%&¤# those guys" policy of Naples, along with the new diplo-point-sucking mechanism for annexing vassals, Antonio I just went for the most skilled diplomatic adviser I could find when the old one died.



Then, on 23. May 1741, Antonio I, King of Naples and Greece, Lord of all Balkan, Master of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, Lord of Arabia, Pharaoh of Egypt, Guardian of Jerusalem, Watcher of the Lands of the Nile, Protector of India and %&¤#er of Those Other Guys - promptly died while choking on a chicken bone, leaving his 12 year old heir and Naples in the hands of Yet Another Incompetent Regency Council.



There were plans for a quick attack on Castile to take the last Aragonese province and the rest of Australia, but those will have to wait until after the next intermission.

Still, Naples could expand diplomatically. First step was another concession to reality though: Baroda would never be annexable with the new system and they were released. It did not take long for our protectorate, Marathas, to eat it up.



However, when the Nobles of Georgia (still ruled by the Bagrationi Dynasty) asked for a "Donation" to help them manage their nation, it was decided that there are more direct ways of solving the regions financial problems.


Fact: A state that doesn't exist can't be in debt!

Likewise, the annexation clock was started on Grenada and Serbia.


Toulouse is going to get even more pissed :-(


They transitioned to a constitutional republic right after this. I guess they wanted to give their peasants a little taste of freedom and rights before they passed to another authoritarian state. It's kind of cruel, really.

While I had every plan of conquering Algeria in order to complete the circling of the Mediterranean to the south, I discovered something very interesting:

Naples would not need to go as violently about it as previously thought.



Seems that they had been broken by Christian rebels from some of the states, that were liberated from Spain, after they had been converted. Diplomats were send to grease up the Christian Prince of Algeria immediately.

Meanwhile, in beautiful (and deadly) Nova Trinacria, it was decided that perhaps we shouldn't tax their foodstuff into space. That's the kind of thing that makes them get all angsty and throwing it into the sea and starting rebellions and whatnot.



By November 1743, young Achille I (who's not female. Probably.) Finally reached his majority. He also had a younger brother that nobody knew about until the moment he assumed the throne properly.

For reasons unrelated, Achille I suddenly took a personal interest in leading armies.


I hear she's a brunette now.

Meanwhile, a couple o' hundred thousands of square kilometres were added to this Purple monster of ours in late 1743 / early 1744.


The Kingdom is alive / The Kingdom is expanding / But continuing to thrive / Can be demanding.

Luckily, some of the peasants of our new territories were of a "If you can't beat them, join them" mind-set and promptly joined the armed forces.


Now supplied with 30% less sawdust!

Just before the end of the session, the term of the old militaristic Governor of Nova Trinacria expired. Achille I had him replaced with a paper pusher to help them with the cores they were still missing.



Lastly, when the merchants of Naples came back with less than stellar trade results, they were told to tighten their belts. Around their own necks. To asphyxiate themselves to death before the merchants guild to send a signal.


Too much?



News of the world

- The Aztecs are no more! (Shawnee still dominates SE America and are completely westernized)



- HRE infighting is rampant.



- France let the Palatinate off easy.



- ... But the war with England continues.



- I think Armenia really regrets starting this war.





Arbitrary Quiz

This round:

No changes! DB was right and wrong and one unknown, resulting in a null sum.

Next round:

There won't be any! Interest in answering questions is waning and the questions have become repetitive. I'll wrap the quiz up in the intermission.

GreatUberGeek said:

Still reading this, and that link to Priapus-gaaaaaaah! Why??????
Keep it up!

Click to expand...

Because we should all revere our ancestors, who were much better at thinking up interesting gods than we are now.

GunthiHrod said:

Love the cartoons

Click to expand...

And I love making them, though only if I feel an event chain calls for it.

DensleyBlair said:

All those annexations are good – if somewhat draining on your points reserves. Naples really has turned into a giant purple beast. Achilles is a somewhat mediocre ruler at best – though his heir seems only marginally better. I guess that's enough to warrant finding yourself at the front of a doomed army in the cutthroat world of EUIV.

Click to expand...

Yeah it's big, purple and sluggish in terms of economy. Once before, I said we were the China of these times. Truth is probably closer to a Mediterranean Russia.


Intermission 3: The Return of the Revenge of the Walls of Text: The Final Reckoning



State of Naples and the World



Naples



Naples has now extended its borders to include:

- The entire Italian peninsula
- All of Balkan and Hungary and Greece except Serbia.
- Asia minor into the Middle East all the way to the Balkan and west to Tunisia and south to modern-day Somalia and the Arabian peninsula.
- Outposts in Granada, India and the Pacific

Vassals:

- Toulouse
- Crimea (extending Naples indirectly to the Caspian Sea!)
- Serbia (almost annexed)

Regions

Europe



- Is still largely fragmented.
- Any unification of the Commonwealth is unlikely, as they don't share the same dynasty - but both Muscovy and Lithuania are still ruled by the Jagiellons.
- Meanwhile, Lithuania still holds provinces that prevent Russia from forming. Muscovy still rules over parts of Scandinavia, Africa and the Americas thanks to annexing Norway.
- The Hansa is a medium power in northern Germany by now and has eaten up a good chunk of Denmark.
- The HRE elector keep re-electing Bavaria, despite Austria slowly regaining power and eating up HRE minors and messing up the majors.
- The Netherlands yet survive, but they have not yet recovered.
- Great Britain is still losing their war with France, but it seems they're riding this out to 100% warscore, if need be. Along with Portugal and Spain, it is probably the only nation that hasn't somehow been directly or indirectly ruined by the very existence of Naples. Given how their hold over Aragon has crumbled since the last update, they should probably just give up on continental holdings.
- Oh, and Denmark is allied with England and their only visible contribution is capturing Corsica. I strong suspect they are using the war as an excuse for a sunny vacation by the beautiful beaches there.

Africa



- New nations seem to have sprung up everywhere. However, mostly it hasn't changed much. Uninteresting, really.

Asia



- The neo-Mughals are still alive and well.
- Orissa is attacking Brunei for lands... It's not going very well.
- The revolution in Japan consists of both freedom-loving Mongolians and Japanese rebels of some sort.
- While Japan has westernized, Ming and Korea are both Chinese tech.


Americas



- Have developed predictably since the last update.
- Portugal holds the lower 2/3 of South America, Castile the rest along with Middle and most of North America... and Alaska.
- English holds the furthest north and Cuba, the Dutch rule over the California.
- Shawnee is impressively still independent and its borders are unchanged in the last 100 years.
- The Inca lingers on. Barely.

Oceania



- Nova Trinacria only assumed control of New Zealand and Australia; the surrounding pacific islands are under the direct control of Naples.
- Spain still holds two provinces in Australia.
- The Netherlands have taken New Caledonia for themselves. That bothers me, as Naples owns all island groups around it.
- Speaking of the Dutch, they just lost a colony in Papua new Guinea, better sent a colonist ASAP.


Administrative/Missions/Modifiers/Stability

Modifiers affecting Naples:

- The conquest of Rome, Jerusalem and Mecca: Total of +3 annual prestige and 3 missionaries.
- Formalized Weight, Scales and Measures: +5% tax.
- Church Tax: +8% tax, +1 revolt risk (works to nullify lowered revolt risk from Patriarch authority while relieving some of the tax penalty.)
- Anti-piracy act: +5% better relations over time.
- Act of uniformity, Conventicle act, Blasphemy act, Sunday schools: +4% missionary power, -2% tolerance of heretics.
- Declaration of indulgences: +3 tolerance of heretics, +5% stability cost. (This one stings a bit, but it was needed at the time.)
- Mining act: -5% trade efficiency, +5% tax, +5% production efficiency. (More useful now that Tax income is so low)
- Thalassocracy: +1 merchant, -10% Light Ship Cost, +0,25 yearly naval tradition, -2,5% diplomatic tech cost.
- Suffrage Bishop Act: -4% tax, -8% stability cost modifier.
- Trading in Slaves: +10% tariffs.
- Trading in Spices: Spy offense +10% (because.. they really hate spicy food and want to go work abroad?)

As for the policies, none of them really appeal to me. I won't use them unless I'm nearing 999 power with nothing else to spend them on. In regards to the new "Power Projection" feature of the latest patches, Naples is doing just fine on that front.



Nothing noteworthy about stability or overextension (both at +2). Overall I have -6,5 modifier on revolt risk.


Yet there are always people who find some detail they think is worth get themselves killed over.



Diplomacy



- Essentially, everyone is either a vassal or an enemy. When I found out that Sweden was even just lukewarm towards Naples, I actually bothered to start making an alliance with them. It could be interesting to see, if we can get a chance to uplift them to form a late Scandinavia.
- I think Algeria will be the last vassal of Naples. I want Naples to catch up on diplomatic tech, and the changes to diplomatic annexations has made it an equal, not a superior, alternative to the good old annex-->core.
- Someone is ruining my reputation, giving me -50 relations with everyone.
- With the way things are going, Toulouse will have to be released and annexed by force later.
- The annexation of Serbia will be completed soon. Crimea and Aragon will be done at the same time, once I have regained Aragon's cores, unless regaining the Aragonese cores takes too long, then i'll just do Crimea first.


Economic/Trade/Infrastructure



- With the vast changes made to buildings, all the +tax building I built in states with more than 9 basetax are now just increasing production of largely worthless products. This has shifted out income to a new balance of Production > Trade >> Tax and a lot of wasted money on buildings.

The current trade chain looks like this:



- Naples will strive to get at least 66% in all Indian holdings and get working on the trade idea group once all vassals are annexed.
- There's a few nations embargoing Naples: Austria, Persia and Kilwa. The first doesn't really matter, but the other two are on The List.



Technology/Ideas



- Military and Administrative tech are up to par with other nearby nations. Diplomatic tech, not so much.
- Still stuck with no improvements in diplomatic tech or trade ideas because of the extremely costly diplomatic annexations. Worst case Naples will just have to send the light ships into safe ports for the duration of wars with great naval nations.
- Still set on Quality as the last idea.



Religion



- Orthodoxy marches with Naples and… recedes with Muscovy? There is a reason Naples is the Defender of the Faith - the only other nation is a sham!
- Otherwise, overall, the religious lines have been etched in stone since the last update. Protestant nations are half the HRE, England and Sweden.
- The reformed religion died with Hungary.
- Islam is limited to Iraq, Persia, Brunei and part of central Asia and the westernmost Indian area... And Tibet, of course.
- The rest of Southeast Asia is a split between western Hinduism and eastern Buddhism, the latter of which also survives well in officially Confucian China.



Military



- If, Russia, France, Spain, Austria, Poland, Lithuania, Bavaria and England joined forces, they might provide a bit of a challenge.
- Hell I am thinking about stepping back somewhat on patriarch authority to save money.



- A standard army is 24 infantry, 2 cavalry and 16 artillery. I have five of them hanging around Italy plus more heterogeneous army groups patrolling for rebel scum.





King's History Naples 1444-1744

Code from 1644 forwards:

Blue: Vassals
Greens: Protectorates
Pink: Nova Trinacria



I STILL DON'T CARE ABOUT WORD CORRECTIONS. LALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

Last goals before the end times.

Let's check the goals from intermission 1:

Internal

- Finish the religious idea group before 1694. It's complete.
- Build up infrastructure according to the plan and increase production in colonies. Done to the best Naples could afford, too late to invest in economy now.
- Restore the Pentarchy. Oh yes. Done.

External

- Finish the land bridge to the Middle East. Done!
- Unite Italian culture by finally annexing Savoy. One day, you're a shameful Savoyard, the next a proud Neapolitan. Strange, isn't it?
- Expand Indian holdings, work towards becoming Master of India. No, eff it.
--- Bonus goal: Become trade master from Indus, Ceylon, Bengal, Malacca and Canton trade nodes. Also dominate the Gulf of Aden. I need to work on the trade ideas to make this even remotely plausible.
- Keep the HRE from forming and ruin the Empire if possible. I haven't technically ruined it by decision, but unofficially, I've revoked so many reforms and weakened the main states so much they won't even get close.
- Keep France under control. They may have regained a few states, but they're not about to make a comeback against me anytime soon.
- Unify hold over the Alps - starting with returning the missing cores to Switzerland. Done

So the old goals are almost all accomplished, and those that are not have been abandoned. Let's make some new ones, starting with what I already settled on when I could not unify India thanks to the update. I don't want to tie the endgame down too tightly, so here's the main things:

- Unite all lands around the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
--- To do this:
----- Vassalize the remnants of Algiers and return their cores, then diplo-annex
----- Annex the lands of Toulouse
----- Diplo-annex Crimea
----- Return the cores of Aragon and diplo-annex them
----- Conquer the last connecting provinces of southern France and Spain along with the Portuguese bit in northern Africa

Build the Suez canal
- No idea on how I'll afford it with my paltry income.

Take the lands Australian cores from Castile for Nova Trinacria

Other goals I've considered:

Optional: Make a land connection to the North-Eastern Indian provinces

Optional: Help Sweden unite Scandinavia

Optional: Completely annex France, Portugal and Castile, if the endgame has nothing else on the plate (and give the border with Austria a little haircut)


End of the Arbitrary quiz.

Let's be honest. Interest has been fluctuating and the questions repetitive. Let's quit now while the game has been good.

Densleyblair is the clear winner here and as a victory prize, the vanguard of the Neapolitan army has been renamed. This brigade will be sent on the most dangerous, far-out and suicidal missions in his honour.



New patch, because I just got used to the old one!

Oh yeah. I don't think this is going to change much for me as a non-republic, but expect me to groan and complain if it does.

3 months later and.. real life hit hard. I can't really find a better way to explain it. Other than that, every time I considered playing, I was hit hard by the "You're already the greatest power in the world" feeling. I started this AAR almost a year ago and I intended to leave it finished, unlike most AAR's.

Still, finishing this is on my big to-do list. However, considering realistic options (I have not even touched EUIV since) I am currently thinking about doing 4 updates, each covering 25 years, and being less detailed. It's a sad compromise, but it beats leaving things unfinished. The end goal that I will absolutely strive for is to finish this before the end of the year.

An extraordinary note: I am probably going to use the last intermission to help me remember what I was planning in the first place and all the different kings of Naples! I'm very happy now that I made those.

Strix97 said:

I'm glad you're going to finish this. You're one of my favorite AAR-writers. Will you do a new one after this one?

Click to expand...

I'm thinking about it. I just have to find out if I have the time for it, but I have a couple of ideas:

- A CK2 AAR as the utterly screwed count Sergios Spartenos of Naples (What can I say, I love the region in any game. Always interesting.) - my personal favorite.
- An EUIV MILDLY interative AAR as Novgorod, if the admins would permit it, where I would line up 3 candidates every 8 years and people could vote for them based on policies on what to do the next session.
- A Victoria II game as the Two Sicilies.

(I had a weird bug where I could not pull up the "war status" screen.)

(Also, 25 years at a time may have been optimistic. 20 seems much more realistic and fits with the new 15-year truces.)

11. December 1744 - 11. November 1764

Alright. back in the saddle. Surely after all this time, the useless missions have been improved.


No.

But that's alright. The goddess of Random Events knows what I am really aching to do.


Stick by the old ways.

But first I enjoyed some of the spoils of the new update and put a national focus on Diplomatic tech. Because damn, Naples is 5 levels behind, spending vast amounts on annexing vassals and needs to get working on the trade ideas.


Thank you Paradox!

And then I declared war upon France, as is tradition. As noted, the war screen did not respond to my desperate clicks. I had 5 'Standard armies' of 42k lined up on the French border and things quickly got hot and heavy. The war started with many "Victories" and a single defeat.


No-one wanted to help the dirty Frenchmen.

Wargoals in order of importance:

- Return provinces to Aragon.
- Provence as to cut them off from the Mediterranean.
- That one French Indian province.
- Cash.



I'll be the first to admit that Naples won by sheer numbers. France had far better generals and seemed to have learned a lesson in using the terrain. However, tactical prowess aside, France was overall broken after this battle and what followed was the standard siege-and-hunter/killer stacks.

By April 1748, France had become tenderized enough.


Making them return Navarra because the Englishmen there belong with their own kind.

Note that I could make France return Sardinia to Aragon since it's now Catalan! Finally Sardinia would fall into Neapolitan hands.

Back in Naples, Adriano Savaranola had become a national hero, when he discovered ways that would allow the musky seamen of Naples to reach dark and mysterious places there were previously considered unthinkable.


Why are you all looking at me like that?

In the East, Orissa overextended itself a bit after trying to take on Brunei.


The pain will only make you stronger... or weak enough to never westernize, which works for me.

Great Britain lost a war against France that ended just after the first one I declared. This has lead to a development quite unlike our recent history.



Algeria agreed to become a vassal, Serbia was absorbed into the purple monstrosity and Bavaria had fallen on hard times.



... Yet Bavaria was still emperor because most electors are protestant. Now, this is the point where i started getting ideas. More on that later.

In 1749-1750 a swift war against Morocco to expand the borders of Naples' new vassal, the completely legit Catholic Noble Republic of Algiers, was declared and won in months.



Naples would later add the first policy ever since it was drowning in unusable military points.


Also shown: The game still urging me to colonize uninhabitable wastelands

And the culprit behind all the sabotage relationships was found.


Well, alright, in this continuity he may have a point.

After getting thrown out once, they would keep sending a new spy a few months later who would then get caught. This kept repeating itself.

But hey, at least in this reality, we're the ones doing this:


And we didn't even have to pretend otherwise.

By 1752, the truce with Castile expired and I lined 5 standard armies up against Spain and three against Austria. It was time to complete Aragon and Algiers.



Wargoals in order of priority:

- Reclaim Aragonese and Algerian cores
- Take that one province between Grenada and Aragon (Murcia)
- Tear Austria a new one (return Bavarian cores?)
- Cash

Both Austria and Portugal answered the call of Castile.

The war started out disastrously as I sent two armies too deep into Castile in order to chase a low morale army, forgetting to grap a stack with a leader. Meanwhile I lost focus in my Austrian front and they managed to attack a weak stack. I quickly assembled a defense in Mercia which resulted in a costly victory, despite a superior defensive position.


Do'h. I've really gotten rusty.

Meanwhile, the real Castillan fleet was running around India and hit one of my trade fleets. I sent the remainder into ports despite losing a good bit of income.

While I shifted focus to the Alps, Castile managed to hit me from behind and wipe out one of my armies. Quite frustrated, I turned around and hit Castile and blindsided one of theirs that had landed blindly in Arabia. Meanwhile, in the Alps, Achielle I used the Red Mountains for their primary purpose.


Killing Austrians, that is.

Note that despite the fact that the Neapolitan troops entrapped the Austrians into a very strong defensive position with a general of equal calibre, losses were almost identical!

This war was slowly turning into a long war of attrition that simple wasn't worth it at the time. I decided to take what I could get and do a better job of the next war from the start.



... Then I realized that with the new truces, that'd be 15 years!

Looking for things to do now that the two major rivals of Naples had a truce, the incorporation of Aragon was begun as they now had all their cores.

Meanwhile, the aristocrats of France woke to a rather alarming development.


And yet the truce is still valid. Oh well.

Soon after, Achielle suddenly died in his late 20's while beating up some random rebels, leaving the throne to his younger brother, Frederigo II, named after the liberator and first Borghese king of Naples. He came with a heir in the form of his one year younger brother.



And Frederigo II had a plan. While Naples had done very little but to collect insane amounts of cash and forming an alliance with Lithuania in the years following the victory over Castile, it was time to turn the attention towards the faltering HRE. For how could something be both a heritical Catholic while calling itself "holy"? How could it be "Roman" with no cultural basis in Italy nor Greece? How could it be an "Empire" when it lets pathetic nations like France and Poland push it around?

It was time to take the reins of this so-called "Empire" and show them the right way.

First things first: A war with Bavaria in 1759, which had become reduced to a single province state. It was an elector, as was its ally Frankfurt. The war was finished within months:



This of course resulted in Bavaria losing its status as HRE and passing it on to Brandenburg. Brandenburg would of course be a very weak emperor and probably unable to reconvert the other HRE members.

But Frederigo II wasn't done.

This was followed by a swift war in 1760 with Bohemia, Silesia and the Palatinate.



Naples had now converted five electors and vassalized 4 of them (Bohemia's warscore requirements were too great). In the meantime, Aragon was incorporated into the growing Kingdom and only Castile, Algeria and Toulouse kept Naples from controlling the entire Mediterranean and Black Sea. Shortly after, the annexation clock would be started on Algeria.



In the interwar years, Naples had amassed a large fortune and they were going to be invested into the construction of a Suez Canal.

Did they really need it? Was there some great in-game tactical options that this would open up for Naples?

No, but they was going to do it anyway. Because It was cool. And so was the other decision that Frederigo II made.



For Naples did indeed rule the seas, and as we all know the first rule:


Finders keepers.

Meanwhile, This continuity's Napoleon was showing his strategic genius by... losing against Castile?



Lastly, I think I'll end the session with the status of the HRE election as of 1764.