The Persian Empire met a foe mightier than ever seen before in the history of the world. The African spearmen. 
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It's not the lack of motivation for Tax Assessors that keeps me from doing it, it's 22 years without military research
I prefer workshops, marketplaces and constables. Tax Assessors are usually more of a you're so rich it doesn't matter that much anyway building.
Actually, in that battle it was 5 armies of 11,000 infantry each. And I needed all of them...nice progress ^^
i can't keep my cot's fully monopolized , so even with their worth over 6 thousand i get less
surprising you get good results with only the african infantry against persia ^^ but i don't often put 35+ divisions in the battles
Indeed, I'm trying to avoid them getting too much of a powerbase in India. As long as the Europeans are limited they are rather easy to control.
And soon we'll be able to upgrade to boomsticks.The Persian Empire met a foe mightier than ever seen before in the history of the world. The African spearmen.
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21 African Mountain Warriors 0 0 0 2 1 4
27 North African Musketeers 1 2 0 2 2 5Chapter 31: Indian Intermezzo
Jan 1638: Oh great. Three decades of extra manpower for our Christian enemies. Thanks Portugal, we'll think of a way to return the favor.
Apr 1638: We declare war on Rajputana. Of course, since they're almost completely occupied by other countries, we need to widen our approach
This hardly seems like a fair fight. Good!
And here's a geographic overview. This campaign might still take a while, if only to siege or assault all those provinces.
Gujarati morale is horrible, owing to their ongoing bankruptcy cycle.
May 1638: Our plans for further Indian expansion come to a grinding halt. Seems like we can't procrastinate African unification any longer.
Aug 1638: At least Castile makes taking their Mexican colonies a bit more appealing.
Gujarat is halfway put out of their misery.
Sep 1638: Scandinavia triggered a Hungarian warning, too bad they did it by attacking another Indian state.
Two Generals die within three days, neither of whom involved in any fighting. Does Swine Flu hit Animists harder?
Oct 1638: Land technology 25 allows us to build level 3 forts. As soon as we're fully narrowminded, we'll move a step toward defensive to get some free forts. At almost 300 provinces, this should mean quite a few free forts.
Nov 1638: Screw you misers, you'll pay your taxes like everyone else.
Dec 1638: Screw justice and consistency, you may consider your taxes lowered.
Mar 1639: Unfortunately the Scandinavians have been quicker to reach the Maharastran coastal provinces and have repelled the last desperate attack
And if it weren't for that Castilian warning, we'd be at war with Naples by now, and we could soon annex a newly independent Syria. But it wasn't meant to be...
Jul 1639: Killjoy, thy name is Castille.
Oct 1639: We take what we can from Maharasthra, which is still quite a lot actually. But why is everyone in India nearly broke?
Still that's more to our liking. Not only is Delhi a lot easier to spell than Maharasthra, it also has a lot more cash on hand.
Dec 1639: Finally, under the stern eyes of Himalayan scaryface (not related to the Cydonians) we end our first Indian war, linking our conquests and adding another rich CoT to our collection.
And here's a small preview of things to come: 39,000 troops are huddled in just two East African provinces.
About 25,000 troops are on the North Brazilian coast near the French border while another 25,000 are spread all over South America.
Somewhere in the TI another Castilian army should be hiding.
Cuba and St. Lucia should be easy targets.
Colombia should be manageable too.
All this scrolling around the world stimulates the memory, so the manufactory mission is replaced by another fort building mission.
Since the Castilian warning our colonial armies have grown quite a bit in size. Our income hasn't grown all that much, but that is mainly caused by a rebellion on the Persian coast, making our Indian conquests overseas for a month or two. And as usual, BB has grown by another 8 points.
Ming expands westward, we expand eastward and Castile expands our targetlist.
Up next: What do you think?
Jan 1638: Oh great. Three decades of extra manpower for our Christian enemies. Thanks Portugal, we'll think of a way to return the favor.
Apr 1638: We declare war on Rajputana. Of course, since they're almost completely occupied by other countries, we need to widen our approach
This hardly seems like a fair fight. Good!
And here's a geographic overview. This campaign might still take a while, if only to siege or assault all those provinces.
Gujarati morale is horrible, owing to their ongoing bankruptcy cycle.
May 1638: Our plans for further Indian expansion come to a grinding halt. Seems like we can't procrastinate African unification any longer.
Aug 1638: At least Castile makes taking their Mexican colonies a bit more appealing.
Gujarat is halfway put out of their misery.
Sep 1638: Scandinavia triggered a Hungarian warning, too bad they did it by attacking another Indian state.
Two Generals die within three days, neither of whom involved in any fighting. Does Swine Flu hit Animists harder?
Oct 1638: Land technology 25 allows us to build level 3 forts. As soon as we're fully narrowminded, we'll move a step toward defensive to get some free forts. At almost 300 provinces, this should mean quite a few free forts.
Nov 1638: Screw you misers, you'll pay your taxes like everyone else.
Dec 1638: Screw justice and consistency, you may consider your taxes lowered.
Mar 1639: Unfortunately the Scandinavians have been quicker to reach the Maharastran coastal provinces and have repelled the last desperate attack
And if it weren't for that Castilian warning, we'd be at war with Naples by now, and we could soon annex a newly independent Syria. But it wasn't meant to be...
Jul 1639: Killjoy, thy name is Castille.
Oct 1639: We take what we can from Maharasthra, which is still quite a lot actually. But why is everyone in India nearly broke?
Still that's more to our liking. Not only is Delhi a lot easier to spell than Maharasthra, it also has a lot more cash on hand.
Dec 1639: Finally, under the stern eyes of Himalayan scaryface (not related to the Cydonians) we end our first Indian war, linking our conquests and adding another rich CoT to our collection.
And here's a small preview of things to come: 39,000 troops are huddled in just two East African provinces.
About 25,000 troops are on the North Brazilian coast near the French border while another 25,000 are spread all over South America.
Somewhere in the TI another Castilian army should be hiding.
Cuba and St. Lucia should be easy targets.
Colombia should be manageable too.
All this scrolling around the world stimulates the memory, so the manufactory mission is replaced by another fort building mission.
Since the Castilian warning our colonial armies have grown quite a bit in size. Our income hasn't grown all that much, but that is mainly caused by a rebellion on the Persian coast, making our Indian conquests overseas for a month or two. And as usual, BB has grown by another 8 points.
Ming expands westward, we expand eastward and Castile expands our targetlist.
Up next: What do you think?
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Yeah the one province corridors are a PITA when revolters chop the link. But the mighty Ashanti shall prevail! Too bad about the warning but this allows you to (perhaps) pick and choose the time to fight.
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From my experience you can nab all those castillian colonies for just 2% warscore. The problem is, while cheap they wont give much warscore. To get a decent peace deal you'll have to invade mainland spain.
A long war, but in the end you can pretty much quadruple you number of provinces in americas in just a war.
A long war, but in the end you can pretty much quadruple you number of provinces in americas in just a war.
Removing Castille from Africa and Columbia, maybe conquering some of their land in Mejico and Argentina.
Yeah, but I could have chosen the time for the last 50 years or so even without the warning. But it definitely is a nice prod in their direction
I doubt an invasion would succeed, they've got about 100,000 troops in Iberia and enough manpower to keep this force fighting for a while.
I'd like to see your advice for Luxembourg in HOI
Good to see your optimism
OSA! Only State of AfricaUSA! United States of Afrika
Wow, you must have polished your crystal ball quite wellRemoving Castille from Africa and Columbia, maybe conquering some of their land in Mejico and Argentina.
Chapter 32: Prepare the Yellow Cake, we're having a Feast
Dec 1639: As usual, after loading a game, the AI does all sorts of crazy stuff. This time we get warned by an Indian OPM and Castille declares war on Great Britain.
Jan 1640: The recent string of dying Generals has left our leadership rather stretched rather thin. A few months and quite a bit of tradition later, we're back to acceptable levels.
Speaking of leaders, Castille is not quite as blessed as we are. This will come to haunt them throughout the war.
Apr 1640: Our final step towards narrowminded costs us 1 level of stability (or about one year of full investment). Now the only way to raise our missionary rate any further is Rome.
Jun 1640: We declare war on the Mamluks, triggering Castile's warning. Unfortunately half a year of war with Britain has only cost Castille half a dozen ships, but they didn't reduce their colonial garrisons one bit. Land tech is 25 vs 27.
The two Castilian armies have united and decide to march on Wolof. So do our 6 armies in the region.
Two armies march into Spanish Mexico. Traces of the Spanish army have also been located, thanks to their war with Britain.
In Colombia 33,000 troops should have the situation under control.
Finally in South America, four armies are currently waiting how the situation on the other fronts turns out (mainly because we lack enough Generals to attack on this front). We will however burn the colony east of Arica, since the Castilians seem fond on sending troops through there.
The battle of Wolof starts off quite well, though casualty ratios evened out a bit after the second Castilian army arrived at the battle lines.
Jul 1640: The second shock phase goes the opposite way, but the arrival of a third army improves the odds.
Aug 1640: Our Caravel fleet starts to show its age in this "victory"
While the loss ratio looks pretty one-sided, morale wise it was less pretty. Of course, still using Latin Knights as their main force isn't helping the Castilians either. No matter the circumstances it's an overwhelming success and we now have a good opportunity to follow up on it.
Parking our fleet off the Iberian shores has had quite an effect on warscore.
Sep 1640: The first half of the Spanish army is annihilated under pretty unlucky circumstances. Tropical attrition pushed their numbers right below the 10:1 margin, and their 1 manoeuvre king allowed them to arrive two days before the second army. You might also notice another army boarding ships to invade Cape Verde. Unfortunately the Canaries are already under siege from Brabant.
The second army now starts a rather expensive pingpong sequence through their provinces (which are tropical for us because ... they're yellow?)
But what can you do? Pursue the enemy and eat the attrition or reduce troops and risk letting the enemy get back into the war.
The fighting in Colombia is over, now the only thing that remains is sieging the two level tree forts.
Nov 1640: Cuba will soon be under our control too. We now have quite a bit of warscore but still don't have much of anything to spend it on.
Dec 1640: Queue an attempt to invade South America. Considering the limited success in battle and the number of incoming enemy reinforcement, we decided to save our morale and retreat back to Arica.
The spirits want another colony on the American West Coast.
Jan 1641: Finally the remains of the Castilian force in Africa are destroyed. We now have lots of forces available to ship to Brazil.
The Huron, seemingly drunk with power after their victory over Iroquois decide now's as good a time as any to get annexed.
We have almost reached the maximum 25 warscore from battles. This is also the main reason we didn't annex the other two OPMs. We prefer to use their 3% warscore against Castille.
Feb 1641: The Castilians decide to repay our friendly visit from two months ago with about half the number of troops they'd need for a successful battle.
Mar 1641: Our invasion force boards the transports to Brazil.
Apr 1641: As predicted, the Castilian attack fails miserably. After seeing the extent of the victory we decide against the original plan of staying on our own territory and open a second front in the South
Meanwhile our two armies start their landing operations.
May 1641: We've reached Atacama and attack a seemingly small defense force.
Jul 1641: Spanish Colombia is conquered. The fight in Atacama is still going on.
Finally, we win the Battle of Atacama. Once again, we should be able to capitalize on this victory and annihilate a big part of the enemy forces.
Aug 1641: We destroy the enemy fleet driven out of Cartagena, but again at rather high losses.
Dec 1639: As usual, after loading a game, the AI does all sorts of crazy stuff. This time we get warned by an Indian OPM and Castille declares war on Great Britain.
Jan 1640: The recent string of dying Generals has left our leadership rather stretched rather thin. A few months and quite a bit of tradition later, we're back to acceptable levels.
Speaking of leaders, Castille is not quite as blessed as we are. This will come to haunt them throughout the war.
Apr 1640: Our final step towards narrowminded costs us 1 level of stability (or about one year of full investment). Now the only way to raise our missionary rate any further is Rome.
Jun 1640: We declare war on the Mamluks, triggering Castile's warning. Unfortunately half a year of war with Britain has only cost Castille half a dozen ships, but they didn't reduce their colonial garrisons one bit. Land tech is 25 vs 27.
The two Castilian armies have united and decide to march on Wolof. So do our 6 armies in the region.
Two armies march into Spanish Mexico. Traces of the Spanish army have also been located, thanks to their war with Britain.
In Colombia 33,000 troops should have the situation under control.
Finally in South America, four armies are currently waiting how the situation on the other fronts turns out (mainly because we lack enough Generals to attack on this front). We will however burn the colony east of Arica, since the Castilians seem fond on sending troops through there.
The battle of Wolof starts off quite well, though casualty ratios evened out a bit after the second Castilian army arrived at the battle lines.
Jul 1640: The second shock phase goes the opposite way, but the arrival of a third army improves the odds.
Aug 1640: Our Caravel fleet starts to show its age in this "victory"
While the loss ratio looks pretty one-sided, morale wise it was less pretty. Of course, still using Latin Knights as their main force isn't helping the Castilians either. No matter the circumstances it's an overwhelming success and we now have a good opportunity to follow up on it.
Parking our fleet off the Iberian shores has had quite an effect on warscore.
Sep 1640: The first half of the Spanish army is annihilated under pretty unlucky circumstances. Tropical attrition pushed their numbers right below the 10:1 margin, and their 1 manoeuvre king allowed them to arrive two days before the second army. You might also notice another army boarding ships to invade Cape Verde. Unfortunately the Canaries are already under siege from Brabant.
The second army now starts a rather expensive pingpong sequence through their provinces (which are tropical for us because ... they're yellow?)
But what can you do? Pursue the enemy and eat the attrition or reduce troops and risk letting the enemy get back into the war.
The fighting in Colombia is over, now the only thing that remains is sieging the two level tree forts.
Nov 1640: Cuba will soon be under our control too. We now have quite a bit of warscore but still don't have much of anything to spend it on.
Dec 1640: Queue an attempt to invade South America. Considering the limited success in battle and the number of incoming enemy reinforcement, we decided to save our morale and retreat back to Arica.
The spirits want another colony on the American West Coast.
Jan 1641: Finally the remains of the Castilian force in Africa are destroyed. We now have lots of forces available to ship to Brazil.
The Huron, seemingly drunk with power after their victory over Iroquois decide now's as good a time as any to get annexed.
We have almost reached the maximum 25 warscore from battles. This is also the main reason we didn't annex the other two OPMs. We prefer to use their 3% warscore against Castille.
Feb 1641: The Castilians decide to repay our friendly visit from two months ago with about half the number of troops they'd need for a successful battle.
Mar 1641: Our invasion force boards the transports to Brazil.
Apr 1641: As predicted, the Castilian attack fails miserably. After seeing the extent of the victory we decide against the original plan of staying on our own territory and open a second front in the South
Meanwhile our two armies start their landing operations.
May 1641: We've reached Atacama and attack a seemingly small defense force.
Jul 1641: Spanish Colombia is conquered. The fight in Atacama is still going on.
Finally, we win the Battle of Atacama. Once again, we should be able to capitalize on this victory and annihilate a big part of the enemy forces.
Aug 1641: We destroy the enemy fleet driven out of Cartagena, but again at rather high losses.
Our transports return to land a second batch of soldiers, however one fleet ventures too far south and gets caught by one of the Castilian fleets.
Ultimately the soldiers land safely and the transports can retreat relatively safely with only three lost transports.
We now have 44,000 soldiers in Brazil while another 44,000 have invaded from Arica.
Those 44,000 (on paper) soldiers succeed in the usual piecemeal destruction of the retreating Castilian forces.
Sep 1641: After storming the local fort, the combined force splits up again to commence sieging operations.
Oct 1641: Surprisingly, Huron survives their adventure in warfare.
We get to keep our Administrative Genius for another term, a very welcome development considering our still high war exhaustion.
Another so called victory for our aging Caravels.
Nov 1641: At least we clearly win the encore. We also learn that sieging level 3 forts takes quite some time.
In the battle of Diamentina, our Brazilian advance comes to a stop. Fortunately the Castilians also retreat to reinforce.
Feb 1642: Seems we forgot to take Screenshots of the Mexican theatre so here's a short recap. The British and the Castilian armies were playing tag with their sieges until the Castilians had retaken Karankawa. After that we intervened and took the CoT. We've also seized the three colonies up north (however they colonized Waco without a nearby city remains a miracle...)
Mar 1642: The fortress at Guantanamo falls and we control Cuba.
In Brazil the first sieges have succeeded and we're exploring the last parts of TI.
We've also seized a Castilian colony and conquered parts of Western Argentina.
Apr 1642: This would have made for a great cliffhanger - if it had happened a year earlier. Now it's just really unwelcome since our blockading fleets are dangerously exposed even to the rather small French fleet.
May 1642: The French once again start sieging Cayenne, while leaving two token forces to defend their own territory.
Jun 1642: Thanks to a timely arrival of the rest of our European fleet, we can avoid losing more big ships.
Whoever thought this war was a good idea should have their head examined. Unfortunately, the French won't develop their head examination machine until 1792.
The end of our Pacific fleet is the best example of our naval troubles. Only our clear numerical superiority keeps us on top.
Sep 1642: In civilian news, another grain province increases its base tax.
A combined French-Castilian fleet sails up the Californian coast. Whatever they planned up there, it cost us a Barque.
Oct 1642: We reach land tech 26 and Leather Cannons. Just around one and a half years until we get a new type of infantry.
Nov 1642: While the French are still sieging Cayenne, we have stormed the forts at Demerara and Suriname. Enough for what we want.
Thanks to the core on Tucujulandia we can demand all three provinces and a nice sum of money from the French.
At this point we've also reached a peak in warscore with Castille. It's still enough to demand all the Mexican, Colombian, Caribbean and African provinces in addition to a two province wide strip of land down the Chilean coast. We have to forego taking Cap Verde however, due to it's proximity to Europe it costs 8 warscore like the other 2 African provinces. Still, no other country besides Ashanti now owns a piece of Africa proper. We're now also the sole owner of the Caribbean.
Dec 1642: And that's the situation in December. We expect to lay low for about a year to let war exhaustion cool down. Unfortunately all our overseas conquests don't result in much income growth.
... but those conquests definitely look nice on a map. Surprisingly, Scandinavia managed to grab quite a bit of Hungarian territory.
Up next: Back to India
Ultimately the soldiers land safely and the transports can retreat relatively safely with only three lost transports.
We now have 44,000 soldiers in Brazil while another 44,000 have invaded from Arica.
Those 44,000 (on paper) soldiers succeed in the usual piecemeal destruction of the retreating Castilian forces.
Sep 1641: After storming the local fort, the combined force splits up again to commence sieging operations.
Oct 1641: Surprisingly, Huron survives their adventure in warfare.
We get to keep our Administrative Genius for another term, a very welcome development considering our still high war exhaustion.
Another so called victory for our aging Caravels.
Nov 1641: At least we clearly win the encore. We also learn that sieging level 3 forts takes quite some time.
In the battle of Diamentina, our Brazilian advance comes to a stop. Fortunately the Castilians also retreat to reinforce.
Feb 1642: Seems we forgot to take Screenshots of the Mexican theatre so here's a short recap. The British and the Castilian armies were playing tag with their sieges until the Castilians had retaken Karankawa. After that we intervened and took the CoT. We've also seized the three colonies up north (however they colonized Waco without a nearby city remains a miracle...)
Mar 1642: The fortress at Guantanamo falls and we control Cuba.
In Brazil the first sieges have succeeded and we're exploring the last parts of TI.
We've also seized a Castilian colony and conquered parts of Western Argentina.
Apr 1642: This would have made for a great cliffhanger - if it had happened a year earlier. Now it's just really unwelcome since our blockading fleets are dangerously exposed even to the rather small French fleet.
May 1642: The French once again start sieging Cayenne, while leaving two token forces to defend their own territory.
Jun 1642: Thanks to a timely arrival of the rest of our European fleet, we can avoid losing more big ships.
Whoever thought this war was a good idea should have their head examined. Unfortunately, the French won't develop their head examination machine until 1792.
The end of our Pacific fleet is the best example of our naval troubles. Only our clear numerical superiority keeps us on top.
Sep 1642: In civilian news, another grain province increases its base tax.
A combined French-Castilian fleet sails up the Californian coast. Whatever they planned up there, it cost us a Barque.
Oct 1642: We reach land tech 26 and Leather Cannons. Just around one and a half years until we get a new type of infantry.
Nov 1642: While the French are still sieging Cayenne, we have stormed the forts at Demerara and Suriname. Enough for what we want.
Thanks to the core on Tucujulandia we can demand all three provinces and a nice sum of money from the French.
At this point we've also reached a peak in warscore with Castille. It's still enough to demand all the Mexican, Colombian, Caribbean and African provinces in addition to a two province wide strip of land down the Chilean coast. We have to forego taking Cap Verde however, due to it's proximity to Europe it costs 8 warscore like the other 2 African provinces. Still, no other country besides Ashanti now owns a piece of Africa proper. We're now also the sole owner of the Caribbean.
Dec 1642: And that's the situation in December. We expect to lay low for about a year to let war exhaustion cool down. Unfortunately all our overseas conquests don't result in much income growth.
... but those conquests definitely look nice on a map. Surprisingly, Scandinavia managed to grab quite a bit of Hungarian territory.
Up next: Back to India
New aim to be the solemn power on the southern hemisphere by the end of the game?
Unless you extend the time-line to 1936 allowing you to conquer whole of Eurasia.
Unless you extend the time-line to 1936 allowing you to conquer whole of Eurasia.
Maybe you can attack portugal next to secure you another big chunk of north america and a foothold in europe.
Very very nice!
The naval side of things looks tricky on occasion, is that a sign of things to come once better Latin units start to appear?
The naval side of things looks tricky on occasion, is that a sign of things to come once better Latin units start to appear?
No. The African tech group has no cavalry units. Even if it did, there is a bug that bars building cavalry if you don't start with a preferred cavalry unit (this can be worked around through save game editing).
Black Power! Colonize those remaining african provinces, dominate Latin America and colonize Australia.
"Black power!"? I can only imagine what would happen to my account if I said "white power!" in, let's say, a French colonial AAR.