My very first EP mod game - impressions/AAR - England

unmerged(64049) · Feb 21, 2007

With much talk about this mod in recent months (I realise its been around awhile), I decided to give it whirl (after resisting mods for a very, very long time). The mod maker (idontlikeforms) describes EP as "an AI enhanced historical mod" and states that "All of the AIs will perform substantially better than anything, at least that I've seen so far, in the vanilla or any other mod that I've tried".

So this will be my frank impressions of the mod and simple AAR based on my very first game (with no looking at events or leader files).

I regard myself a long time experienced player whos pretty bored with the Vanilla version (well its has kept me going for some years) and I hope this mod may help me to further enjoy EU2.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Couple things hit me straight away - there are some countries 'missing' and England doesnt have French culture, but Celtic - gulp. No Norway, no Teutonic Order etc etc, plus France is 'messed up', but these are no biggies to worry about.

Theres not only no straits (I hated those when they first came in - though they grew on me), but theres also no land connection for MP and economical reasons. Without the land connection and without French culture, expanding on the continent is now practically worthless imo (economically speaking).

We start at war with France (just like Vanilla - but without the allies), though we dont want to take any land off France (because their dirt poor for us - I know it sounds strange) - so the objectives for this war is to beat em up and loot their territories for ducats.

Also we start with some BB, hmmm, Ok its not the end of the world.

So far, so easy.

This is alittle puzzling, for some reason England is unable to send diplomats to Aragon, Castile, Portugal or Brittany until 1422.

And France is pretty much dead.

I declared war on Scotland a few months after they dow on my vassal Ireland, however they werent in an alliance then and I didnt re-check, my mistake! But what does that matter, surely England is safe?

After annihilating a small army in Strathclyde, Henry is defeated in Lothian, although he suffered few losses while killing many.

And the Scotish threat is nullified - Im happy - all is well - so far pretty plain sailing.

My plans to loot France for some years are thwarted by this event. Peace or inherit. Though I didnt really want the provinces, I decided the best option was to inherit France for .25 BB per province, then lose the provinces to who ever wanted them - this would shed all our starting BB.

(I didnt actually know whether this event really would have settled a white peace with France - the second option says "Propose a generous peace" included in the title, but when I hovered the pointer over the button, it only mentions stuff like affecting relations etc. I was unsure if it meant white peace was included or not - if a white peace wasnt included, I would have chosen option B and kept on looting).

------------------------------
-Also thanks again to Catknight for helping me install the mod.

unmerged(64049) · Feb 21, 2007

WHOA!!! Dauphine's high powered cavarly armies.

Dauphine turns into France, still got the high powered morale (though perhaps not as strong as Dauphine), and Bedford doesnt stand a chance - so we retreat him to Maine. One thing that strikes me here (besides the increase morale and large number of enemy troops), the ai France is actually seiging very smartly - not throwing 100,000 troops into one province and dying of attrition, but spread out nicely. (Im impressed).

Bedfords 8000 odd cavalry (who were on the defensive) lose to Provences 3000, ugh.

We claimed Cleves throne and dow; the hope here was to grab Burgundys COT (the only provinces in Europe worth taking).

The plan is simple - capture Flandern and as much of Brabant (the weak link) as we can, until the alliance leader Burgundy offers Flandern.

After a few successful battles and the capture of Brabants capital - Burgundy cough up the goods - seemed easy enough.

And straight away we are bombarded with offers for trade agreements - the list continues further down below.

For some reason I couldnt give France - Normandie, Caux or Picardie - even though they have captured them, very strange. Anyway they accept our generous offer.

Huh? I vassalized them in the last war but they are still in France's alliance?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Besides some peculiarites, I must say I am very excited so far and am looking forward to the next session, Dauphine/the 'second' France fought exceptionally well, and even if I wanted to 'beat em' Im not sure I could have.

CatKnight · Feb 21, 2007

Hey Capt!

I'm glad you're doing this! I've been wanting to do an EP AAR, but with my current projects...hm.

I won't spoil your surprises (and can't spoil many, since I've never played EP England) but you've now seen how strange France is. France-1 are I believe the Capetians, and they are indeed doomed. (In AGCEEP they're not even playable.) Dauphine/France-2 are modern France.

Getting rid of the straits struck me as normal enough, but the lack of French culture for England surprised me. I suppose this was to drive home the point to the English AI. I'd expect, normally, a player to lose French culture after 1453 (the end of the HYW) but I suppose if one waits the AI is stuck defending a bunch of poor provinces.

The Teutonic and Livonian Orders do indeed get merged. (From your Vanilla XP you know them as Prussia and the Teutons) Austria actually gets split into three countries in AGCEEP, then EP throws them back together. IDLF says this helps their AIs and isn't that unreasonable historically.

Now as for your game...taking Flanders was very useful! I'd keep a heavy garrison there - Burgundy will probably want it back

By taking yourself out of France you should be able to avoid more nastiness down there -time to deal with Ireland?

(And no, I don't know why SCO is still in FRA's alliance if you forcevassalized them. Hm.)

unmerged(64049) · Feb 21, 2007

CatKnight said:
I'm glad you're doing this! I've been wanting to do an EP AAR, but with my current projects...hm.

Its only a simple AAR, no fancy stuff

.

CatKnight said:
I won't spoil your surprises (and can't spoil many, since I've never played EP England) but you've now seen how strange France is. France-1 are I believe the Capetians, and they are indeed doomed. (In AGCEEP they're not even playable.) Dauphine/France-2 are modern France.

Yeah I gathered that was the case, I think I read something like that a long time ago.

CatKnight said:
Getting rid of the straits struck me as normal enough, but the lack of French culture for England surprised me. I suppose this was to drive home the point to the English AI. I'd expect, normally, a player to lose French culture after 1453 (the end of the HYW) but I suppose if one waits the AI is stuck defending a bunch of poor provinces.

I think its also to get the human player off the continent (from making big empires there anyway).

CatKnight said:
Now as for your game...taking Flanders was very useful! I'd keep a heavy garrison there - Burgundy will probably want it back By taking yourself out of France you should be able to avoid more nastiness down there -time to deal with Ireland?

Yes - cots are good

- Burgundy does not seem so strong, whereas France is very strong, so I did lose so remainding provs. As for Ireland I was hoping on diplo annexing them (since the are Celtic culture provs), but they broke the vassalage

, so i had to deal with em.

unmerged(64049) · Feb 21, 2007

Ireland broke the vassalage agreement the year earlier. This will not be tolerated, especially since they are Celtic culture provinces.

I already like this event. Basically we out seige the Irish and annihilate their mainly infantry army in Meath, before re-vassalizing them.

Ok good. Here we can get rid of Picardie, Caux and Normandie (I hope) and clean up Scotland.

I am happy to join Castile's alliance because relations will increase and my chances of getting military access off Castile will also increase. I want MA so I can access the Mediterranean with ease.

Look here, France is seiging quite nicely (+ they're 98% cavalry armies). I did break through with Bedford after and did some looting, but his army took some heavy losses and it may not have been worth it.

Because this is a defensive war and they are Celtic provinces, we take em for everything. They didnt fight too well anyway - perhaps they arent meant to be too hard?

And France gets Caux, Normandie and Picardie after demanding Flandern - yeah right!

unmerged(64049) · Feb 21, 2007

Since the continent is not worth taking (besides Cots). I take a look around for Cots (as a way of useful expansion) and see the Mameluks have two spare. Now in Vanilla the Mameluks are a walkover, but I have no idea what to expect here.

Looks easy enough so far. Take Syria (as it has a higher supply limit), before spreading out - thats the plan!

Oh dear me.

Talbot made it to Aleppo quick enough, but the enemy stopped and spilt his forces up. Whoa, Talbot decimates the huge Mameluk army, but takes big losses - at this point Im thinking that must have been their entire army and the rest of the country will be easy.

Nethertheless, reinforcements are on way.

Rest of the country easy? Boy was I wrong! Now I have a decision to make, retreat and wait for the reinforcements to come (their still a fair way off), or just take Aleppo?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Excellent! The Mamlukes had money and built a big army and prepared them for the attack, then attacked at once - damn that was close.

Btw I chose to take Aleppo, I figure they may try to take it back later, then I'll be in a defensive war, we see what happens.

CatKnight · Feb 21, 2007

Loaning to the AI's an exploit. Shame

I'm glad to see the Mamluks are competent though! You did well enough, but I think you were wise to get out of that while you could. I always found orchestrating a war on the other end of the continent difficult.

unmerged(64049) · Feb 21, 2007

CatKnight said:
Loaning to the AI's an exploit. Shame

Huh?

. I need CB for war, I have no CB's whatsoever, what else am I to do? I dont really see why any European nation should get BB for going on alittle crusading anyway?

Is it really that bad? What about the "claim throne" for CB (then snatch cot) is that the same?

Im just use to exploiting just about anything in game in order to acheive the desired results, I know no other way, what rules do you have?

CatKnight said:
I'm glad to see the Mamluks are competent though! You did well enough, but I think you were wise to get out of that while you could. I always found orchestrating a war on the other end of the continent difficult.

It is difficult

, but I certainly dont take those losses in Vanilla, it could have easily gone the other way there, or perhaps cost alot more in lost troops.

unmerged(31425) · Feb 21, 2007

Capt Janszoon said:
So this will be my frank impressions of the mod and simple AAR based on my very first game (with no looking at events or leader files).

Sounds pretty good to me! I hope you don't spare any valid criticisms of the mod. I generally like to hear them as I usually then try to "fix" the problem in the version of EP I release.

Capt Janszoon said:
Couple things hit me straight away - there are some countries 'missing' and England doesnt have French culture, but Celtic - gulp. No Norway, no Teutonic Order etc etc, plus France is 'messed up', but these are no biggies to worry about.

This is all deliberate.

Capt Janszoon said:
Also we start with some BB, hmmm, Ok its not the end of the world.

It goes away quickly enough when you cede territory to France.

Capt Janszoon said:
This is alittle puzzling, for some reason England is unable to send diplomats to Aragon, Castile, Portugal or Brittany until 1422.

This I got from AGCEEP. I used an old version as a base to start my mod from. Figured it would be easier to clean up all the things I don't like in that AGCEEP version than it would be begin with the vanilla as a base. Obviously this is to prevent a human France or England from recruiting a powerful major into their alliance too early and then easily running over their opponent in the HYW.

After all we really do need France and England to be healthy to make the game interesting and closer to history later on.

Capt Janszoon said:
(I didnt actually know whether this event really would have settled a white peace with France - the second option says "Propose a generous peace" included in the title, but when I hovered the pointer over the button, it only mentions stuff like affecting relations etc. I was unsure if it meant white peace was included or not - if a white peace wasnt included, I would have chosen option B and kept on looting).

Unfortunately as modders we don't have the ability to force peace between nations via event.

Capt Janszoon said:
WHOA!!! Dauphine's high powered cavarly armies.

Capt Janszoon said:
We claimed Cleves throne and dow; the hope here was to grab Burgundys COT (the only provinces in Europe worth taking).

I'll be curious how this goes for you. I can "fix" this if you wind up being able to hold Flandern in the long run.

Capt Janszoon said:
After a few successful battles and the capture of Brabants capital - Burgundy cough up the goods - seemed easy enough.

Sadly, strengthening Burgundy early 100% of the time has some nasty side effects.

But that doesn't mean I can't beef him up when he's being picked on by a human player.

Capt Janszoon said:
Huh? I vassalized them in the last war but they are still in France's alliance?

Sometimes the EP AIs know who their historic allies and historic enemies were.

Capt Janszoon said:
I am happy to join Castile's alliance because relations will increase and my chances of getting military access off Castile will also increase. I want MA so I can access the Mediterranean with ease.

This is not very nice. I'll have to "fix" this if it winds up being too big of an exploit.

Capt Janszoon said:
Because this is a defensive war and they are Celtic provinces, we take em for everything. They didnt fight too well anyway - perhaps they arent meant to be too hard?

Just as word of caution, you may want to be a little more conservative with the BB accumulation in EP. It tends to make the bigger AIs a little more aggressive towards you. The stab difficulties can really hurt and your merchant placing may suffer more than an additional few provinces is worth.

Capt Janszoon said:
And France gets Caux, Normandie and Picardie after demanding Flandern - yeah right!

I'll be curious to see if you wind up giving Flandern to him or not later on.

Capt Janszoon said:
Excellent! The Mamlukes had money and built a big army and prepared them for the attack, then attacked at once - damn that was close. Btw I chose to take Aleppo, I figure they may try to take it back later, then I'll be in a defensive war, we see what happens.

Hmmm, that's not a bad idea actually...

Capt Janszoon said:
Huh? . I need CB for war, I have no CB's whatsoever, what else am I to do? I dont really see why any European nation should get BB for going on alittle crusading anyway?

Is it really that bad? What about the "claim throne" for CB (then snatch cot) is that the same?

Im just use to exploiting just about anything in game in order to acheive the desired results, I know no other way, what rules do you have?

It is difficult , but I certainly dont take those losses in Vanilla, it could have easily gone the other way there, or perhaps cost alot more in lost troops.

I'm really interested to see how this style of playing plays out for you. My take is that when I play EP I prefer to be passive early on and focus on teching, colonizing, and merchant placing, assuming my monarch has a high ADM. I mean is the financial loss of building all those troops, then supporting them, especially at 100% for lengths of time, really worth the financial gains of those new provinces given that the BB may hurt you for awhile too? You may want to switch tactics a little later on in the game if your tech starts lagging behind the AIs too badly.

I hope my comments aren't unwanted Janszoon. If they are bothering you, being that I'm the one who mods EP, let me know and I'll keep quiet.

unmerged(15337) · Feb 21, 2007

idontlikeforms said:
I can "fix" this if you wind up being able to hold Flandern in the long run.

Nice to have a modder ready to "help" you...

CatKnight · Feb 21, 2007

Eh, don't mind me Capt. I tend to be a very conservative player and I am usually much better than the AI. Whenever I read someone suggesting a possible exploit I usually listen very carefully to avoid it.

Of course, if EP's AIs can stand up to you regardless then it's not that much of an exploit. You're trying to stay alive

Personally....let's see:

I don't loan to the AI, because I know there are better than even odds they won't pay back. Other than the 200d or so I'm effectively getting a free CB.

I've never Claimed the Throne oddly enough! I wouldn't think this is bad because while you get a free CB, you also lose relations with other nations you have a RM with. I'm only slightly against this.

I feel CBs SHOULD be rare - one shouldn't be able to rampage across the map - then again as I said I'm a very conservative player nowadays.

I don't go to war with a nation my allies don't know about to intentionally break up my alliance. They will dishonor, giving me free CBs and the ability to remake my alliance as I wish. Very handy if you're not alliance leader, and so...

Those are the big ones. Generally it's 'getting something for nothing' I worry about, especially with weaker AIs. I'm testing two new ones that Storey talked about in a EU 3 AAR:

Don't take loans. The argument is that while loans do have a penalty (interest) that discourages using them, they do allow the player to be stubborn and simply outlast the AI. Perhaps. Certainly 'being stubborn' is one of my tactics when I'm losing. We'll see.

Spend limited amounts on stability. Storey simply caused it a ducat-drain rather than problematic. I'm testing how serious the game's affected if you enforce a limit on buying stab - it SHOULD take time to recover if your stab's gone that far down...but with so many events knocking down your stab, maybe it's fair you should be able to recover quickly. We'll see.

And of course this whole post is personal preference. As I said, don't mind me... especially since the Mamelukes didn't appear to need house rules to protect them

IDLF: I dunno about 'fixing' Flanders. It seems like a legitimate tactic to me.

unmerged(64049) · Feb 22, 2007

idontlikeforms said:
Sounds pretty good to me! I hope you don't spare any valid criticisms of the mod. I generally like to hear them as I usually then try to "fix" the problem in the version of EP I release.

I dont like to think of it as criticisms (even valid ones), More like just observations, its your mod, you took the time to make it - Im not going to say something is wrong with it designs, its your vision not mine.

idontlikeforms said:
This is all deliberate.

Of course, I was just pointing out some differences.

idontlikeforms said:
It goes away quickly enough when you cede territory to France.

Yes, I got the impression thats what is 'meant' to happen.

idontlikeforms said:
This I got from AGCEEP. I used an old version as a base to start my mod from. Figured it would be easier to clean up all the things I don't like in that AGCEEP version than it would be begin with the vanilla as a base. Obviously this is to prevent a human France or England from recruiting a powerful major into their alliance too early and then easily running over their opponent in the HYW. After all we really do need France and England to be healthy to make the game interesting and closer to history later on.

Sure, fair enough.

idontlikeforms said:
Unfortunately as modders we don't have the ability to force peace between nations via event.

Well now I know for next time.

idontlikeforms said:
I'll be curious how this goes for you. I can "fix" this if you wind up being able to hold Flandern in the long run.

Is it broken if I can hold Flandern?

The way I look at this, is that Im going to try to play in a similar fashion as I would in Vanilla and just see what happens. If Im able to hold cots all throughout Europe, I aint going to complain (but if their more trouble than their worth - I will give them up). See - I read your thing about the ai being tougher and I just want to see how tough

. So far Im impressed with the 2nd Frence and the Egyptian wars

idontlikeforms said:
Sadly, strengthening Burgundy early 100% of the time has some nasty side effects. But that doesn't mean I can't beef him up when he's being picked on by a human player.

Being picked on? I had legitimate claims on that cot, ie - its rich and Im greedy

idontlikeforms said:
Sometimes the EP AIs know who their historic allies and historic enemies were.

They would have become my ally had they been free

, so sometimes they break alliance/sometimes not? Depending who is vassalizing who?

idontlikeforms said:
This is not very nice. I'll have to "fix" this if it winds up being too big of an exploit.

Well its just a way of increasing relations, just saves spending lots of money on them.

idontlikeforms said:
Just as word of caution, you may want to be a little more conservative with the BB accumulation in EP. It tends to make the bigger AIs a little more aggressive towards you. The stab difficulties can really hurt and your merchant placing may suffer more than an additional few provinces is worth.

Bring it on! I want to see what this baby can do

. I dont worry about stab unless its time to go to war (then I want -2) and I dont bother sending merchants in the early game (probably more so now in EP - if the ai is better).

Its not always what the gain is to me - but what is the loss to the other nations.

idontlikeforms said:
I'll be curious to see if you wind up giving Flandern to him or not later on.

If they capture it and I have no way of forcing some other peace on them, they will get it.

idontlikeforms said:
Hmmm, that's not a bad idea actually...

We'll see.

idontlikeforms said:
I'm really interested to see how this style of playing plays out for you. My take is that when I play EP I prefer to be passive early on and focus on teching, colonizing, and merchant placing, assuming my monarch has a high ADM. I mean is the financial loss of building all those troops, then supporting them, especially at 100% for lengths of time, really worth the financial gains of those new provinces given that the BB may hurt you for awhile too? You may want to switch tactics a little later on in the game if your tech starts lagging behind the AIs too badly.

I play on 50% maintenance in Vanilla until I or the enemy can start making serious assaults, I see no need to change that at this time. The BB may hurt, but I ask myself "how else am I going to rack up BB?". I usually try to grab a cot here or there early on - regardless of who I play, while focusing research on infra - I will usually fall behind on land tech. But I consider the extra revenues from these rich provinces (and loot during the war) are more than worth it in the long run.

I expect to slow down in taking available cots, when there is none left to take

or the process of taking it is no longer worth it - they have too big land tech / army advantage / high attrition.

idontlikeforms said:
I hope my comments aren't unwanted Janszoon. If they are bothering you, being that I'm the one who mods EP, let me know and I'll keep quiet.

Of course not, Im glad to have you looking in and making comments.

jwolf said:
Nice to have a modder ready to "help" you...

Indeed!

CatKnight said:
Eh, don't mind me Capt. I tend to be a very conservative player and I am usually much better than the AI. Whenever I read someone suggesting a possible exploit I usually listen very carefully to avoid it.

Fair enough, it is a fairly big exploit (I guess), but Ive slept on it and decided to play similar to the way I would vanilla and observe the game differences.

CatKnight said:
Of course, if EP's AIs can stand up to you regardless then it's not that much of an exploit. You're trying to stay alive

Im not sure I would call sailing to the other side of the known world and stealing their riches - trying to stay alive

. But I get your point.

CatKnight said:
Personally....let's see:

I don't loan to the AI, because I know there are better than even odds they won't pay back. Other than the 200d or so I'm effectively getting a free CB.

The loan is for CB alone, lets face it - they rarely pay it back.

CatKnight said:
I've never Claimed the Throne oddly enough! I wouldn't think this is bad because while you get a free CB, you also lose relations with other nations you have a RM with. I'm only slightly against this.

I feel CBs SHOULD be rare - one shouldn't be able to rampage across the map - then again as I said I'm a very conservative player nowadays.

Cb's rare? I enjoy war too much. Sure I got a cot off the Egyptians, but more importantly I got an exciting war (and adventure), however brief it was.

CatKnight said:
I don't go to war with a nation my allies don't know about to intentionally break up my alliance. They will dishonor, giving me free CBs and the ability to remake my alliance as I wish. Very handy if you're not alliance leader, and so...

I have broken up alliances to start a new one (in other games), it is a very bad exploit really.

CatKnight said:
Those are the big ones. Generally it's 'getting something for nothing' I worry about, especially with weaker AIs. I'm testing two new ones that Storey talked about in a EU 3 AAR:

Don't take loans. The argument is that while loans do have a penalty (interest) that discourages using them, they do allow the player to be stubborn and simply outlast the AI. Perhaps. Certainly 'being stubborn' is one of my tactics when I'm losing. We'll see.

Spend limited amounts on stability. Storey simply caused it a ducat-drain rather than problematic. I'm testing how serious the game's affected if you enforce a limit on buying stab - it SHOULD take time to recover if your stab's gone that far down...but with so many events knocking down your stab, maybe it's fair you should be able to recover quickly. We'll see.

No loans? I dont know about this one. If a major victory can be reached with a few more armies paid by loans, whats the harm? On the otherhand when Im defeated badly, I will begrudgingly give up land.

I rarely spend money on stab as it is, most often just when I want to dow.

CatKnight said:
And of course this whole post is personal preference. As I said, don't mind me... especially since the Mamelukes didn't appear to need house rules to protect them

Sure - perhaps I should/will give them (rules) a go next game and see how I enjoy it.

unmerged(64049) · Feb 22, 2007

Its obvious to me these Irish arent paying me enough protection money.
Also note the large galley navy - its prime objective is to seek out and destroy enemy shipping adjacent to the isles and Flandern.

Looky here - our ally did a bad, bad thing and needs to be punished. With next to no CB's presenting themselves - we need to take what opportunties come to hand.

So we leave Castile's alliance and join Aragons - they can be used as a counter weight against France if they attack us (Aragon also gave up MA after we joined their alliance). The marriage with France is a bid to repair relations and hopefully persuade them to look kindly on us and not make war.

Is it my fault that Castile chose to join the war? My troops were there (in preparation - training).

The initial war against Portugal goes smoothly enough.

The amount of shipping we sunk through the course of the war was astounding, well pretty much similar to Vanilla in that respect - our total losses was one galley. This - I believe will weaken the Iberians severely, I wonder how fast they can rebuild their navies.

Double trouble - time to get down to business.

We capture the Portugese homeland pretty easy once we brought the big guns. The Castillian armies sat and waited for us, before attempting to recapture their allies provinces - this is the same as Vanilla - I guess its hard to coordinate (programming) allies forces / defences.

unmerged(64049) · Feb 22, 2007

The Portugese captured Meath and Flandern during the course of the war, though lost both before peace was concluded.

Talbot's army was mauled badly here and was forced to retreat, eventually losing seven thousand cavalry to this medum sized force. I would expect him to have annihilated this force is Vanilla, but hey, these things happen (even in Vanilla sometimes).

This offer is just too good to refuse, sure they arent cots, but they are very rich provinces, and more importantly than that - they have two nice manufactories. Also forgot to mention, the Portugese maps werent much (as you can see in the mini map), just the East coast of Africa. Its still early and I guess this is about normal as per Vanilla.

That was quick!

Bohemia was even earlier, but both? Also Burgundy appears to have gained some land via event/s.

We recaptured Aleppo from Morocco and Flandern from Castile, making our warscore positive (from battle victories) and peace was desirable.

Sure there are large penalties, but this province is one of Englands best.

CatKnight · Feb 22, 2007

Hm, it looks like they still put up a credible counterattack (Meath, Flandern, et.al.) though you repulsed them. Congratulations! I don't think their naval losses will really affect them much, but losing two home provinces may well mess Portugal up! I bet getting their maps, even this early, didn't hurt either!

unmerged(64049) · Feb 22, 2007

CatKnight said:
Hm, it looks like they still put up a credible counterattack (Meath, Flandern, et.al.) though you repulsed them. Congratulations! I don't think their naval losses will really affect them much, but losing two home provinces may well mess Portugal up! I bet getting their maps, even this early, didn't hurt either!

Portugal actually did put up a decent fight considering. Their maps really werent much to talk about, although I forgot to mention that (will edit that in).

unmerged(64049) · Feb 22, 2007

Ok, a few years have past and we just exited the alliance with Aragon. Now we aim to enter Polands alliance and join ourselves with the good people of Danzig (where a new Cot showed up).

Of course we were expecting Poland to be happy to have such a great ally as ourselves, and therefore had troops ready to go.

Unfortunately Poland is not a good ally and sells us out. No bother, theres always 5 years from now...

In the mean time we get hit with a couple of civil war type events.

Even Muscovies armies are strong, must all have nice DP's. And Talbot is forced to retreat.

Needing to see the weak link in the chain (Golden Horde), we swap maps with the Polish betrayers. We then proceed to fight some battles with them (Golden Horde) and accept a small tribute (as they have nothing we need - except Astrakhan

, but its all too likely we would be sold out again).

Anyway, the five years was finishing up, so we claimed the Teutons throne (well really we claimed Danzig - they can keep their throne).

I dont know? All we did was capture Danzig and win like two battles and their throwing their prize province at us, it seems too easy - similar to Burgundy (who seemed to offer Flandern alittle too easily?) Mind you, the Teutons may be under alittle stress. - so we accept Danzig.

So now we look round and see what else is happening in the world - Interesting, Egypt's in a nice and powerful looking alliance, plus I have a CB on them cause their at war with the Pope. We got no leaders like last time, but this could be an interesting little war - If we get there in time that is (Alexandria beckons).

unmerged(64049) · Feb 23, 2007

Theres alot of manufactories and a few conscription centres early on (forgot to mention before). I never saw anybody build anything, so I guess they are free bees to help the ai, though they present themselves as worthy targets for the scheming human player.

We missed the earlier CB opportunity as peace was signed between the opposing parties before we could get to the middle east in numbers. So we loaned Ak Koyunlu some money and this war is the result of them failing to pay up (but somebody will pay).

There were some dicey battles (Warwick just holds on), but things are going quite well, the Turkish/Egyptian alliance are back at war with the Venetian/Papal allaince - so we arent copping the lot.

So far so good, we recaptured Aleppo from the Turks and they appear to be too preoccupied with the Venetians to bother with us for now. The Egyptians appear tired and nothing like they were in the first war with us (I guess their other wars took their toll). Right at this point Im thinking of going for a 99% warscore, so I can take Alexandria and get MA.

What was I saying?

. The highly advanced Turk is scaring me! (Not wanting a long drawn out war, I make peace (with Egypt - the alliance leader) before the Turks capture Flandern - we gained Alexandria).

Austria annexed Burgundy the year earlier.

Interesting, I got this event which gave me a Mayor in the Midlands, but I lost my minimal fort in the Highlands.

WHOA there!!! Not only are the Turks the most advanced (they are racing away with land tech), but they have the biggest (OE) empire I have ever seen the ai have, they annexed the Ak Koyunlu some 7 years before. (I realise these are by events - but still - I would be really worried if I were Austria right now). On the otherhand, if they dow England I think I would just give them Aleppo and Alexandria without a fight.

Anyway, enough ogling other empires, lets get back to building our own!

unmerged(60725) · Feb 23, 2007

Wow! Th AI's a lot different from vanilla. That Ottoman Empire is insane. Your own looks pretty good. Any goals apart from looting everywhere for their COT's?

CatKnight · Feb 23, 2007

WHOA there!!! Not only are the Turks the most advanced (they are racing away with land tech), but they have the biggest (OE) empire I have ever seen the ai have, they annexed the Ak Koyunlu some 7 years before. (I realise these are by events - but still - I would be really worried if I were Austria right now). On the otherhand, if they dow England I think I would just give them Aleppo and Alexandria without a fight.

Um....that wasn't an event. Not in 1479. (IDLF? Correct?) Anyway the event assumes the Ottos will control the Mameluke capital. If they're allied, that isn't happening. It looks like a diploannex.

My very first EP mod game - impressions/AAR - England

Major

Major

Disciple of Peperna

Major

Major

Major

Disciple of Peperna

Major

Married Man

Field Marshal

Disciple of Peperna

Major

Major

Major

Disciple of Peperna

Major

Major

Major

First Lieutenant

Disciple of Peperna