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Out of the Blue Hills: A KoreAAR

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@dinofs - buffer state is nice - lets me pick my chances a bit more. I've been building up my fleet a bit (about 25 big ships) but Japan's is still a bit bigger.

@TonyJoe - thanks for joining in! Glad the gameplay shift is to your liking :)

@Timmie0307 - welcome aboard! I'm hoping I end up in the driver's seat in China too :)

@sprites - I know, isn't that annoying? Trying to get rid of the Ming, and my whole dynasty is named Ming. LOL
 
Chapter Eleven - A Short Victorious War(or two?)

With the new cores in place and a slight boost to my forcelimits, I feel it is time to start taking some bites out of that massive Ming apple. I preposition some troops along my southern border with Ming and declare war due to a trade dispute (forgot the screenie of the declaration as usual :)).

At this time, Ming is already flush with rebels, so it seemed like a good time to attack in my books - they are still quite a bit bigger than I am, but if they are distracted....

My troops attack Dali, Guangxi, and Guangzhou, then start filtering out to other provinces:

11a.jpg


11b.jpg


Here you can see the trouble Ming has gotten itself into:

11c.jpg


After taking a few more rebel-controlled provinces for myself (and having only faced fairly minimal Ming armies), I sue for peace.

11d.jpg


11e.jpg


Nice little grab and gets me on my way to connecting my two territories.

Since I have to wait out the truce period anyway, I decide to help my rebel friends in Ming out a bit :) It's because I'm a nice guy.

11f.jpg


The results were good, but obviously my spies are a little transparent! At any rate, Ming is a rebel mess. It collapses not too long after this picture.

11g.jpg


Feeling smugly satisfied with myself, I sit back and let the game run a bit. I soon discover that the Ming have not forgotten my spies' activities and that they are eager to give me a taste of my own medicine!

11h.jpg


Well, we can't have that, can we? :) I declare war on Ming on the grounds of having discovered a spy (screenie forgotten again). This time, I attack from the north and the south. There is a large Ming army posted in Chenzhou that I need to take care of:

11i.jpg


I chase them into Yichaun and defeat them again, but they manage to slip away one more time.

11j.jpg


Finally, I annihilate them in Henan and in the process complete a mission (my forces now outnumbered the Ming armies)

11k.jpg


This leaves the bulk of the Ming armies destroyed. My forces take provinces in the north and the south. There are a couple more medium-sized engagements, but my armies prevail and there is soon a string of sieges and occupations.

11l.jpg


Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the southern Ming provinces take a lot of war score to take. This deal was the best I could wrangle:

11m.jpg


It turns out that it was a good thing that I declared war quickly - my ruler dies quickly after the war and I am stuck with a terrible Regency Council.

11n.jpg


Time to wait for my heir to ascend to the throne...I think he might have some interest in Wu :)
 
Nice work. :D Wu sounds good, you'll get all those rich southern provinces.
 
@dinofs - yup, I'm coveting some of those rich provinces, plus I must neaten my borders :wacko:

@TonyJoe - Thanks! As for westernizing, I will only be going that route if pesky western nations show up on my doorstep - otherwise, I'm happy to stay in my crappy tech group :)

I should have another update out later today, for anyone following ;)
 
Chapter Twelve - Wu Tang Clan apparently is something to F@$# wit

So as you can see, my conquests from the Ming have left me with an ugly border - can't have that! :) Those Wu provinces look pretty tasty too - I'd like to grab Changsa, Guangzhou, and Macau to fill out my lands. As it happens, I have a core on Changsa which gives me a nice little CB. Of course, there is some risk since Wu is guaranteed by Japan and Ming, and is allied to some of the peripheral Asian powers as well. only way to find out what will happen is to declare war...

12a.jpg


12b.jpg


I track down and destroy the Wu army that dared to invade Jiangmen, finally wiping them out down in Wenshan. In the meantime, my armies have stormed Bozhou and Xishuan Banna.

12c.jpg


I should mention here that Japan, Taungu, shan, and Assam all declared war on me as well! The only one that really worries me is Japan - they have enough strength to be a potential threat, especially when I am tied up with Wu and friends. I decide to make peace with Wu to focus on fighting off the Japanese. For some reason, I can't take Changsa - I think it is controlled by patriot rebels friendly to me (annoying!). I still get a few good provinces.

12d.jpg


In the meantime, Japan has taken Hainan and landed another large army in Jiangmen. My troops have superiority in Jiangmen for the moment, but there are Japanese reinforcements headed in from Hainan...

12e.jpg


But they are of no use :)

12f.jpg


I peace out the minors as they were annoying me, and crush the remaining Japanese forces (they also landed a small invasion force on my home provinces which was quickly destroyed). As I do not have naval superiority, I agree to a white peace. I'll have to repay them at a later date.

During the peace, I enact the Anti-Muslim Edict, giving me a boost to my missionary production (+0.5 missionaries per year). I also focus on some ship-building, hoping to gain naval superiority over Japan.

12g.jpg


So, remember how I couldn't attack/claim Changsa? Those rotten patriot rebels decided to join up with the Manchu! Grr, can't let that go unpunished! WAR!!!

12h.jpg


Of course, I end up fighting everyone and their brother again. This time, my hope is to snatch the Manchu lands and peace out. My forces quickly complete the siege work and all of the Manchu lands fold. For the second time, I wipe the Manchu off the map.

12i.jpg


12j.jpg


So, Manchu is out of the way, but I am still at war with Wu, Ming, and Japan all at once! Fortunately, Ming hasn't had time to recover from the last beating I gave them and Wu is fairly reduced as well. Might as well show those Wu who's boss.

12k.jpg


At the same time, I grab a few provinces off of the Ming. I don't have enough extra forces (or BB room) to do much more, so I send them off with what I consider to be a generous peace treaty.

12l.jpg


Hmm, that province colour seems a bit off....NOOOOOOO!!!!

12m.jpg


What does it take to get rid of these guys! :D

At any rate, I still have a war to conclude. I send my newly-enlarged navy out with a recruited admiral to face off against the Japanese before they can invade me. I was nervous that I would get killed and waste all that build time, but...

12n.jpg


...I manage to wipe their galleys out entirely. This gives me the lead over their navy for now, which is lovely. Still, I'm not ready to invade Japan, so I white peace them and go back to Wu.

12o.jpg


Very nice :) My badboy is very high now though, so I need to take some time off from conquering. I also have this pop up:

12p.jpg


Better relax for a bit.

(also, sorry for always forgetting to take screenshots of my CB's! I'm just too excited to get the wars started I guess, lol)
 
This is one of the few cases where the "Form Manchu" decision actually makes sense. The Manchu horsemen fled from their recently-annexed home, found themselves in a very weak, crumbling Ming, and promptly overthrew the Emperor.

Anyways, you made some very nice progress this time around. :D How stable is the new China? Does it have a better chance of survival than it's predecessor?
 
Chapter Thirteen - Closing the Gap

So as planned, I need to take some time off to reduce my infamy - I'm up in the mid-40's and that's not good. I hire on a couple of infamy reducing advisors to help knock that down:

13a.jpg


While I wait for them to get me back down to an acceptable BB rating, I focus on religious conversions - there are plenty of provinces out there to take care of. The downside is that many of the missionaries are expensive since the populations can be high in this area.

13b.jpg


Here's a lovely graph showing my income versus that of my neighbours.

13c.jpg


I also gain a core on Chiang Mai during this peace period, which I don't act on immediately. Fortunately, it is held by Lan Na, who have also claimed Pegu and Moulmein from Brunei. Something to consider for later action :) I also have this pop up:

13d.jpg


Finally, I can bear the strain of having available CBs no longer :D I declare war on Lan Na. Brunei and Taungu jump in to help them, but I don't have the BB available to take land from them. My goal is simply to force them out of the war and take the Lan Na lands. Brunei quickly is beaten into a white peace.

13e.jpg


I also accept the 8.0 BB points to annex the three Lan Na provinces, putting me pretty much back where I started BB-wise. Ah well :)

13f.jpg


I then deal with Taungu:

13g.jpg


13h.jpg


Soon thereafter, I get a welcome great man event, which helps knock down my BB a bit:

13i.jpg


I settle back down into the rhythm of peace and finally get some new units! I switch to Defensive Asian foot Soldiers and Samurai Cavalry.

13j.jpg


Japan in the meantime has diplo-annexed Wu, which surprised me. Manchu is also showing weakness again, as they are once more plagued with rebels. I figure it is time for a patented surprise attack while you are dealing with your rebels, and declare war on Manchu!

13k.jpg

(yes, I even managed to take a screenie of the declaration for once!)

The Manchu forces are small and scattered, and I quickly settle down to a succession of sieges.

13l.jpg


13m.jpg


Manchu is overwhelmed and is soon forced to accept peace:

13n.jpg


The addition of the formerly Chinese lands has also been a major boost to my CoT located in Vijaya - it has more than doubled in value!

13o.jpg


My conversion efforts have also gone well - the majority of my holdings are now Hindu (take that, historical realism!)

China is fragmented and none of the individual states there can really challenge Korea now - I am close to my goal of connecting my two territories! We'll see if I can get there without anything tragic happening :)

13p.jpg
 
Ah, it does my heart good to see a powerful Mongol Khanate.
 
@dinofs - well, not to spoil anything, but you may want to temper your expectations for the continued existence of a powerful Mongol Khanate ;)

@Rockingluke - Thanks :) I will be aiming to dominate China, but I'll be leaving my Hindu brethern in India in peace :) I do still have several other scores to settle though....

Next update will likely not be available until Monday due to my schedule. Thanks everyone who is reading and/or leaving comments for me - the encouragement has really helped me to keep up with the AAR and I am determined to finish it out.
 
One question, I have plain EU III without any expansions or mods. But I was wondering, do the names of the countries change in location as you conquer more and more territory, it seems though that way if I compare Screenshots.

I mean in HOI 2 it was fixed on the map, the names of the countries, but they are dynamic here?


Another question :p, do you still have only one advisor? Or have you filled the two vacant positions already?

Good luck with killing the remnants of Ming China...

Tim
 
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