Once Mughals, I cant let go of Afghanistan?

[Suleyman]

I was playing Timurid-Mughals.... (you start 1492 game as Timurids, and you become Mughals during early 1500s). This event is very well done, by the way. Kudos to Paradox and betas for making this event very well-done and smooth.

Once I become Mughals and then captured Delhi, and then moved my capital to Delhi. OK, fine and good. But now the game does not let me "release" Afghanistan as a vassal. Why?

One of the reasons I wanted to "release" Afghanistan was because I had already lost some better parts of Afghanistan to my border wars with Persia and Uzbeks. However, I was victorious in my campaigns over Delhi.

So I still possessed Kabul (barely) and two or three adjacent Afghani "crap provinces". I wanted to let them go, seing that these poor desert/mountain provinces would actually slow me down and really did nothing to my overall treasury. Plus owning the Afghan region kept me exposed to 3 nations that hated my guts: Persia, Uzbeks, Baluchistan. And yet my important focus was really on India. Plus I'm aware that owning crap provinces in Afghanistan makes your empire bigger but also slows down your tech research! So I am really focused on consolidating my empire within India (much richer provinces)

But once I turned Mughal, the game no longer recognizes my Afghan fringes as a legitimate territory that I can release as a vassal. Does anyone know why?

BTW, the game does allow me to release two provinces as the Punjabi nation.... but I'm not that stupid. The Punjab provinces are rich provinces next to my capital in Delhi. There's no chance in hell I'm gonna let them go. Those darn Sikhs will just have to live under my tyrannical iron-fisted Mughal rule.

thanks for any answers

[Grunthex]

According to revolt.txt, Afghanistan can only revolt after 1600. They don't start the scenario existing, do they?

[DarthMaur]

Afghanistan beginning date of revolt was changed in 1.02, to 1600, i suppose?

[Grunthex]

I don't remember what it was in 1.01, though I did see them down there pre-1600 a few times.

[Besuchov]

IIRC Afganistan was removed until 1600 in the 1.02. This in order to make the transition from Timurid to Mughal easier, the provinces were also given forts. The idea was that when the Timurids disintegrated, the Afganistan area would be what they most likely would be left with.

[UtahJazz]

Holding on to worthless provinces slows down your tech? Is that true, or is it limited to this instance for these Afghanistanian provinces?

[Heliumgod]

Originally posted by UtahJazz
Holding on to worthless provinces slows down your tech? Is that true, or is it limited to this instance for these Afghanistanian provinces?

Well, generally, the more provinces that you own, the more expensive tech research becomes... there were some nifty charts posted here a week or so ago outlining the cost of technologies (can't remember which tech group it was for tho) correlated with # of provinces... I seem to recall that the cost of tech. is fairly optimal around eight provinces, but I really can't remember all of the numbers I am afraid!

[Grunthex]

What's supposed to happen is your tech costs increase until 8 provinces. Getting more after that is effectively no-cost (I think a minor 2% or so). There was a strange... feature in 1.01 at least, not sure if changed, where 8 provinces actually made tech cost LESS than 7. Same as 5 I think.

That was supposed to have been fixed, but no one's run an experiment yet.

[Heliumgod]

Originally posted by Grunthex
What's supposed to happen is your tech costs increase until 8 provinces. Getting more after that is effectively no-cost (I think a minor 2% or so). There was a strange... feature in 1.01 at least, not sure if changed, where 8 provinces actually made tech cost LESS than 7. Same as 5 I think.

That was supposed to have been fixed, but no one's run an experiment yet.

Ah-h-h-h... I was not aware that this was going to be changed.

Well heck, if owning more than 8 provinces involves negligable cost, I'd definitely recommend owning as many as possible of any sort wherever they may be and whomever might live there.

[Vulture]

Originally posted by Grunthex
I don't remember what it was in 1.01, though I did see them down there pre-1600 a few times.

Before 1.02, they could revolt anytime. Now only after 1600, which is more historical

[Suleyman]

Thanks for the answers everyone. That explains everything.

You see in version 1.01 I was used to seeing the existence of Afghanistan from the very start of the game, so I had assumed that they could also exist as a revolter nation or creatable vassal at any time. I wasn't aware of the changed starting revolter date in 1.02

that explains it all. thanks

[Suleyman]

Originally posted by UtahJazz
Holding on to worthless provinces slows down your tech? Is that true, or is it limited to this instance for these Afghanistanian provinces?

Yes this is true to a good extent. Do you ever notice that the smallest one or two province European minors like Baden or Bavaria are almost always the tech leaders in many games? That's because they are so tiny, they have to spend a LOT less for their tech levels to increase. That's why even if the are tiny nations, their tech levels will zoom zoom zoom just as fast (or sometimes faster) as any of the largest empires like a French Empire or a a large Imperial Austria.

Of course, this assumes other factors, like the fact that these nations do NOT constantly throw away money in losing wars or wars of stale attrition (which always tends to slow down anyone's economy)

[Demetrios]

What happened was this:

During beta-testing, we wanted to design some Timurid-to-Mughal events so that one could transform to the other (as is historically accurate). Unfortunately, the Timurids usually completely collapsed before the event could take place. This was mainly due to the appearence of Afghanistan in the area which was actually the place where the Timurids retreated to. So Afghanistan's start date as a revolter was moved back to 1600 and the Afghan cities were given walls to make the area secure for the Timurids. And it seems to have worked to perfection - in most games, by 1500, all the Timurids have left is Samarkand and the Afghani provinces, which is very nicely historical.

[Vulture]

Yup works better than ever. Started a Lite Grand Campaign as Muscovy a few days back. It's 1535 now, and Timurids have collapsed nicely, but held on the Afghan provinces. All the rest bacame Persia (who later became HUMONGOUSLY big, diplo-annexing Mameluks, and annexing the Sheep Hordes). And the Timurids have already become Mughal Empire, capital move from Samarkand to Kabul