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Agreed with serpent, pisa is still allied with the aztecs, but its AI might not drag them into offensive wars with aquitaine that the imperium can intervene in and the aztecs would not. The aztecs, and maybe other foes of the imperium should get a bonus to unjustified demands and AE impact so the AI is more greedy; the horde took a pretty good chunk of land, but it was paid back to the imperium with interest. Now, they could always bounce back, espeically since a lot of aztec land in europe is of its own culture (so does that mean we wouldn't be able convert it unless we totally destroyed them?), so the cores won't be going anywhere anytime soon, but I doubt the whole of egypt could be lost in one disastrous war again like it was in CK2.
 
Also off topic, here's Christoforo in CK2. Mostly accurate, although his wife isn't named that and he isn't Serene Doge of Genoa (ingame he's more like patrician/doge of Alexandria. There's a few other things I didn't include as well, for various reasons. Though his ambition and focii are accurate.

jfDB7fp.png
 
Also there is the question, how many cores are still arround/got converted.
Indeed. We know the Xenoi have a sizable chunk of their European lands converted to Aztec culture. Might be that Barcelona has only Aztec-culture provinces as neighbours.
Obviously, this means the Reconquista will be hellish.
 
Also off topic, here's Christoforo in CK2. Mostly accurate, although his wife isn't named that and he isn't Serene Doge of Genoa (ingame he's more like patrician/doge of Alexandria. There's a few other things I didn't include as well, for various reasons. Though his ambition and focii are accurate.

jfDB7fp.png
Nice! I think I'll make Anastasios and his heir in ck2 when I have time, and every new character.
 
This is off topic, but have you given any thought to a reformation mechanic in the Imperium? A religious civil war might be a fun stumbling block, and would give the Senators very concrete things to disagree on.
That said. Anyone else terrified by the upcoming "something different"?
Though at this point it doesn't sound too outlandish to imagine an Inca-Ming coalition setting out to conquer the world.
Waaaay to optimistic. From the picture you could still still the red colour of Xenoi provinces, you overestimate how many things were released from the war/the revolt. Aztecs will definitely still have alot of land in Europe.

jb9zm9d.jpg


Great aar but it's sad to see how poor the AI is. The AI is pretty good at fighting a war, but terrible at actually winning anything that matters. The Xenoi and Pisans threw away their victory in the last war. If they had been in the hands of a player they would have broken the Imperium completely. Instead they settled for a handful of ducats and two provinces. Next war, when the imperium won, they took half the Pisan lands and are about to start demolishing the Xenoi in Europe.

I think the problem is that the Xenoi don't have the right casus belli to take land when they win their wars. The AI thinks the diplomacy cost or AE will be too high so they settle for next to no gain. They either need a good all-purpose casus belli like Holy War or they need to be given claims by events (such as those certain countries get with "Italian Ambitions" or the Ottomans gain against the Mamluks to guide them into taking the Levant and Egypt). And those claims need to last longer than 25 years since they tend to expire before the AI is capable of taking advantage of them.

The glitch that freed Pisa from their vassalisation should also be reversed, it's really not in their best interest to be unprotected from the Imperium.

I'm sorry if I come off as too negative. You've done a wonderful job with this AAR. But for all the challenges you've given yourself it still seems the AI is unable to keep up with you. No matter how well written an AAR is, or how fun a game is to play, it tends to become less interesting when the eventual victory of the player seems inevitable. And if you keep taking ten provinces for every two provinces lost you will soon be undefeatable.
Alas, you are right. Some additional modding is going to be required because AI is - unfortunately - pretty dumb. But actually I have some plans concerning these issues - and hey, I'm first to nerf myself :)

Or I may just ask someone to play as Xenoi, if this is technically feasible - with vast territory (like Russia), huge manpower (like France), fantastic NI (like Prussia) AND human intelligence behind them they would be truly a nightmare they are story-wise.
Agreed with serpent, pisa is still allied with the aztecs, but its AI might not drag them into offensive wars with aquitaine that the imperium can intervene in and the aztecs would not. The aztecs, and maybe other foes of the imperium should get a bonus to unjustified demands and AE impact so the AI is more greedy; the horde took a pretty good chunk of land, but it was paid back to the imperium with interest. Now, they could always bounce back, espeically since a lot of aztec land in europe is of its own culture (so does that mean we wouldn't be able convert it unless we totally destroyed them?), so the cores won't be going anywhere anytime soon, but I doubt the whole of egypt could be lost in one disastrous war again like it was in CK2.
In CK2 collapse of a whole realm was much easier - all it takes was few bad events, one unlucky war and a bad heir. In EU4 you rarely see such big changes. Which is why I'm probably going to mod the technology so that Administrative Efficiency is unlocked much, much earlier (ADM lvl 10 perhaps), CBs and introduce some triggered modifiers.

Shame that I have to do all of this manually but EU4 obviously not prepared to handle the world of "This Is Madness" with vanilla mechanics :)
 
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Nice! I think I'll make Anastasios and his heir in ck2 when I have time, and every new character.

Yeah I should do one too, but if we begin to do that then it is gonna be strange when we arrive by the 1700's :p
 
ARAGON IS BACK!

Ah, and hi guys. Finally I came back.

Hahahaha! The Kasteloi have been quiet too long, right? With this great news, the Kastel Palace will be retaken. Prepare yourself, new Aragonian King: A lot of papers that document my nnoble house rights on Aragon are coming by sea.

Maybe I should be more active now, like in the beginning. Czoklet, with this update and chapter you have gave us a lot of material.

Oh, I loved the last words of Markos III, but his son was... uhm, kind of "not so sad"?. I don't know, it could be better. I guess. Maybe I like more drama in that kind of scenes? Heh, forget this hahaha.

Anyway. Excellent as always. I just arrived home after some weeks and to see that the save is fixed, the new chapter and the faction sessions has been... oh, too much.

I'll dry my tears.
 
Yeah I should do one too, but if we begin to do that then it is gonna be strange when we arrive by the 1700's :p

"Whigs? Bah, obviously some Pisan scheme, true men have long flowing beards and tunics and capes!"
 
Truly amazing chapter. My guess for the special update ist that we are going to be presented something from a non-imperial perspective...

If you'd let a human take over the Xenoi, the Imperium would be lost without a doubt. Are you sure that the last bit of hope should be crushed?
 
Truly amazing chapter. My guess for the special update ist that we are going to be presented something from a non-imperial perspective...

If you'd let a human take over the Xenoi, the Imperium would be lost without a doubt. Are you sure that the last bit of hope should be crushed?

It seems like the Xenoi have bigger problems than the Imperium. They may have a lo on paper, but much of their empire is overseas.
 
You're right guys, we need a real challenge. How about we have DDR Jake play the Azzies, and Johan play the Timurids?
/s

I think for more difficulty, we should trigger a few disasters, or potentially mod in a schism for the Orthodox faith, rather than make the AI even more OP than it is. That way the senators get to have discussions ove how to deal with, say, a peasant uprising.
 
You're right guys, we need a real challenge. How about we have DDR Jake play the Azzies, and Johan play the Timurids?
/s

I think for more difficulty, we should trigger a few disasters, or potentially mod in a schism for the Orthodox faith, rather than make the AI even more OP than it is. That way the senators get to have discussions ove how to deal with, say, a peasant uprising.

With greek fire, how else?
 
I think for more difficulty, we should trigger a few disasters, or potentially mod in a schism for the Orthodox faith, rather than make the AI even more OP than it is. That way the senators get to have discussions ove how to deal with, say, a peasant uprising.

The AI doesn't need to be more powerful. It needs to be smarter so that it can make use of the power it already has. It needs better casus bellis, a better "unjustified demands" discount, and it needs claims to guide it into taking the provinces it should want to take. Perhaps an event that triggers a "Manifest Destiny" on the European Continent that keeps retriggering every time the Aztecs get a ruler with a Mil score of 4 and above.
Perhaps The Timmys could get similar events that give them claims over Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia,Central Asia and India. The Horde could get events over Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, the Balkans, North Black Sea Coast, Central and Northern East Asia. The Incas, Chinese, and Aboriginal Empire could get similar events over neighbouring regions. Overall it would result in a more wars and worse wars, more befitting of our grimdark setting.

And if the Horde and Timurids fail to modernise their governments before say 1600 they should get some help to do that so that they don't become irrelevant in the later parts of the game.
 
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These formulas are never lost, they just need to be enhanced :D
The Reformation Heresy is about whether or not Greek Fire should be colored during heretic burning sessions. Purists insist on pure flame, whereas the reformists want multicolored pyrotechnic explosions.
 
The AI doesn't need to be more powerful. It needs to be smarter so that it can make use of the power it already has. It needs better casus bellis, a better "unjustified demands" discount, and it needs claims to guide it into taking the provinces it should want to take. Perhaps an event that triggers a "Manifest Destiny" on the European Continent that keeps retriggering every time the Aztecs get a ruler with a Mil score of 4 and above.
Perhaps The Timmys could get similar events that give them claims over Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia,Central Asia and India. The Horde could get events over Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, the Balkans, North Black Sea Coast, Central and Northern East Asia. The Incas, Chinese, and Aboriginal Empire could get similar events over neighbouring regions. Overall it would result in a more wars and worse wars, more befitting of our grimdark setting.

And if the Horde and Timurids fail to modernise their governments before say 1600 they should get some help to do that so that they don't become irrelevant in the later parts of the game.

I agree with this. I think the AI is doing fine as an opponent, and the Imperium has enough weaknesses added in (including the Senate, at times).