The World Conquerors of EUIV
Hello everyone, for this month I thought I’d try something a little different and rather than give you a straight up review, I’d instead have a look at more than one author who have attempted one of the most difficult achievements in EUIV – conquering the world.
First, I must confess that I’ve never once attempted a WC in a Paradox game. The mere thought of the micromanagement and planning involved is likely to bring me out in a cold sweat, so I’ll start by saying that I admire the ambition and perseverance of all three authors who have undertaken this.
This article will look at three AARs which have attempted to complete a WC; DDRjake’s Three Mountains, bleakie’s Beyond the Sultan of Rum and eugene171’s Tea and Crumpets Worldwide. All three have chosen different countries, played using different versions of the game, and have written their AAR’s in a different style, and it is interesting to contrast these different approaches.
Tea and Crumpets Worldwide by eugene171
I start with the most recent of the three AAR we will look at*today, Eugene only began his AAR in mid-January. This was just as the first expansion for EUIV was released, but the game is played with a historical old world. Playing as England from 1444 offers an excellent opportunity to secure a Personal Union over France – but only if the difficult 100 Years’ War can be tackled. It is a challenge, but one which a number of players have accomplished, and Eugene cites Bibor’s guide as being very helpful in ensuring that England emerges with a French union. Despite a Novgordian intervention, the British Isles are soon secured. A quick strike against the Iberian’s is a key strategy of many WC attempts – cutting off the colonisation before it can begin, and with a strong French Union and an Aragonese ally it is not long before both Lisbon and Toledo are occupied. Centuries earlier than real life, English pensioners begin to settle en masse in Spain as the first slice of territory is carved out, and then Eugene gets lucky when the Castilian King dies without an heir, and a personal union under England is formed. A large England, unions with France and Castile and its only 26 years of gameplay in. Can you see that writing on the wall?
This doesn’t mean plain sailing of course, and in an attempt to arrest the fine progress Eugene is making the Paradox Gods unleash an inconvenient bug. Before being integrated, Castile was able to create a colonial nation, and upon annexation of the overlord this becomes fully independent, rather than a subject of England. As well as colonial companies, Eugene has to contend with the new protectorate mechanics. An opportunity is spotted, and in the mid 1500s Sibir swears fealty to London and becomes a new-fangled vehicle of expansion.
The new mechanics are interesting, but England (now Great Britain) must still deal with the Holy Roman Empire…
In the early 17th*century, Eugene reveals his cheesiest strategy, one which has been employed from the start; tech suppression. By not investing in diplo tech beyond level 7 (indispensable due to the colonial range boost), Eugene can effectively prevent any nations from westernising following contact with his sprawling empire. To celebrate, the final HRE reform is passed and we once more change tags, from Great Britain to the Empire.
Eugene flies through the game at a brisk pace, and writes in a witty fashion which is highly engaging. From a gameplay perspective, the PU with Castile was a bit of a watershed moment, moving the question on from ‘will a WC be achieved’ to just a matter of when, and the amusing commentary keeps the reader coming back.
Beyond the Sultan of Rum by bleakie
Interestingly, the game was not started with the intention of completing a WC, but rather to unlock the ‘Sultan of Rum’ achievement, but early in game events transpired to offer an excellent opportunity to look beyond this already high ambition. The Ottomans have been sucked into a war against the Iberian infidel in Morocco, and 40,000 crusaders have disembarked on the North African coast. Castile and Aragon are bloodied until they will accept a white peace, but Portugal is put to the sword and forced to cede Porto and Madeira. The fight against the colonisers has begun.
Of course, the Near East cannot be ignored, and small wars against the Turkish Beyliks are fought, before the inevitable confrontation with Egypt begins. The second war in Iberia once again unites all three Christian powers in opposition against the Turks. The battles slowly dwindle manpower, but ever ambitious bleakie simultaneously strikes against Venice, using his fleet to keep their forces confined to Italy and trying to win the war without battles.
Byzantium, rather than being annexed, are maintained as a vassal in order to core newly acquired orthodox territory.* From the flames of the war against Egypt bleakie produces a second vassal – the newly released state of Syria. The early intervention in Iberia has an interesting consequence – Granada actually survive well beyond the first decade of the game!
The English, thanks to their alliance with Portugal, are soon drawn into the wars as bleakie begins to consolidate his grip on Iberia, which results in Leinster becoming the first part of the British Isles to answer to a Muslim overlord. The fight against the next colonial rival has begun!
By 1653, coincidentally 200 years after the fall of Constantinople in real life, bleakie believes that the chances of a WC are beginning to slip between his fingers. Around this time, bleakie also changes the format of his updates. Recognising that a narrative of the wars is perhaps becoming slightly repetitive (given the constant state of warfare), the updates instead focus on key milestones and an overview of the empire.
The problem is the HRE, which has shown itself to be incapable of much progress towards unity, and as such places a number of central European provinces well beyond his grasp. Alternatives goals are suggested by the author, including reducing the number of provinces not within the Ottoman Empire to below 150, and completing the original goal of unlocking the Sultan of Rum achievement. By 1692, however, the HRE is destroyed and disbanded. Could a WC still be possible? At the time of writing, bleakie had progressed to 1792 in the AAR – drop by and give him some encouragement!
The Three Mountains: A Ryukyu AAR by DDRJake
Started on the 14th*August, just one day after the release of the game. The title is the name of what many expected would prove EUIV’s hardest achievement to unlock; a world conquest with the tiny state of Ryukyu. To date, only a tiny number of players have succeeded in unlocking this achievement. This is a repeat of DDRJake’s Ryukyu world conquest in EUIII.
The AAR itself actually covers two games, first one starting with vassalization of SE Asian minors, and then an ambitious pacific crossing to attack the North American natives. What follows is a race to box the Spanish into a small corner of Brazil, and an 80 ducat per month deficit as the painful realisation dawns that the cost of colonial maintenance rises exponentially as the number of active colonies exceeds your colonists. The first of many exploits was discovered – the so called process of ‘vassal feeding’ where you pass of newly conquered territory to your vassals to reduce overextension, and under your vassals stewardship the land will be cored and converted, saving you valuable monarch points and gold. The mercenary fuelled invasion of Europe in the later part of the 16th*century brought predictably astronomical casualties for the backward Ryukuans, but after securing the first European province in the south of Portugal a huge invasion of Spain begins. However, this game was not destined to be the first WC, and events transpired to hugely weaken the vast Ryukyuan horde. The blotched attempt to switch to a republic, which soon collapsed back into a despotic monarchy, caused a spike in revolts and resulted in the loss of much land in Iberia to a resurgent Spain. A Hail Mary pass was thrown – an unjustified war against the Ming, and although it appears to be going well it is clear that too much time has been lost. And so begins attempt 2.
DDRJake promised that his idea for the second attempt would be crazier than the first, and he duly delivered. The first teaser screenshot showed a broken China split into a number of Ryukyuan vassals, just 40 years into the game. Shortly after, we saw Ryuku’s third war begin – not against any of the Indian, South East Asian or Central Asian countries, but against Castile in the heart of Iberia. DDRjake had discovered an incredible exploit – exiled troops were able to march all the way to Europe, looting as they went, allowing him to send vast armies right along the ancient Silk Road to Western Europe. Where the first attempt had gone boldly east, attempt two was on a lunatic’s crusade to the west.
Soon Iberia was a mismatch of Ryukyuan land and vassals, and the allied armies were smashing apart the Big Blue Blob to the north. Soon invulnerable exiled ships join exiled land armies to extract blockade income and raise war exhaustion in coastal cities which cannot retaliate while the units are exiled. More are to follow; you can ‘store’ monarch points by starting building constructions, begin westernising, and then cancel your constructions to instantly regain your monarch points, vastly reducing the cost of westernisation. Defeat rebel missions were found to be an extremely reliable way of maintain some level of stability. The one I found most amusing, however, was that rebels use whichever unit you have designated as your unit type. For most games this means rebels will be of equal quality to your own armies, but in DDRJakes crazy world of mercenary armies the rebels soon found themselves limited to the weakest type of infantry DDRJake could select!
The ultimate exploit was so delightfully dripping in cheese that I cannot even bring myself to reproduce it here, but suffice to say that DDRjake had found a way to take advantage of Ryukyu’s rather unique available missions to effectively mint money without consequence. The AAR builds to a fantastic conclusion as DDRJake takes on the*might of a unified HRE , and the last independent nation falls to Ryukyu in early 1762.
So, two of our three authors have been successful in their attempts to conquer the EUIV world, while the third has not quite finished. All three, however, played their games and wrote their AARs very differently. DDRJake’s attempt is unlikely to be surpassed for sheer craziness anytime soon. Taking one of the weakest countries to the heady highs of World Emperor is no small achievement, and through ruthlessly exploiting many oversights in the code DDRJake demonstrates an understanding of game mechanics that few will ever match. His writing portrays an almost constant air of suspense – we know he is discovering these exploits, but the reveals are staggered throughout the AAR to keep the readers guessing. The pace of the game, or games to be strictly accurate, is quite impressive, and it is little wonder that the author needed a bit of a rest towards the end! A large number of the developers stop by to offer their congratulations, and the AAR has racked up well over half a million views (!)
Bleakie appears, through his writing, to take a more considered approach and progresses at a slower pace. Perhaps this is in part due to the fact that the game did not start as a WC attempt, and although only a few years had passed before bleakie decided to attempt one it is clear that to complete the conquest a huge amount of planning is required. I’d be interest to hear what, if anything, the author would do differently had he started the game with the intention of conquering the world. The mechanics are discussed at length, and midway through a number of calculations take place to try and establish if the goal is still possible.
Eugene’s effort was written at a lightening pace – indeed although I followed from the start I rarely had just one chapter to read at a time when I caught up. The short, humorous narrative was excellent, and made the AAR flow very quickly.
So, what can we learn from these three varied attempts? First, and most importantly, a WC attempt makes for a fantastic AAR! All three authors stared from radically different positions, and have fared differently as they work towards their goal, and yet all three AAR’s have been well followed.
There are two issues which will always have to be tackled in a WC attempt; dealing with the colonial nations and dismantling the HRE. On the colonial nations, our writers had a clear consensus – deal with them early. However, on the HRE the attempts differed. DDRJake allowed the HRE to form and become his ‘boss battle’ at the end of the AAR. Bleakie too did not meddle to early, and left mopping up the HRE towards the later part of the campaign. Eugene, but contrast, embraced imperial politics and became the HRE.
Reading the three AARs together, it is clear that one word sums up how each writer plays the game; efficiency. Conquests are carefully calculated, and especially later in the game truces are triggers at specific times in order to ensure a supply of targets. Direct conquest is not the only method of expansion of course, and all the writers make use of vassal/ protectorates/ colonial nations to further their expansion.
I thoroughly enjoyed all three of these AARs, and was very impressed by the ability of the authors to plan their games so meticulously. I’d encourage you all to check the AARs out; especially bleakie’s who has not quite finished yet!