• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I have looked at some previous comments, and it's basically all about fighting the hordes and/or the Aztecs. Yet I believe this is folly.
If you want to get to power. Enough power to kill both the mighty hordes and the practilly unstoppable Aztecs. You must expand from Europe.

Conquer the indies, India, and China (especially before they get to powerful)
this may take a while (as your nation appears to be in a bit of a pickle from within) but when you are ready, you need to spread out. Wether this has been said or not, it's important to remember this is better than facing the enemy head on with only the given resources
 
Conquering overseas would only give the Imperium more enemies and more borders to defend, which would be foolish when it can't even defend the borders it already has. The best long term solution for the imperium is not to make more enemies but to reduce the number of enemies it already has. It can not keep fighting the Xenoi, Horde, Timurids and Pisa every few years, it must be able to focus on one or two of them at a time so it can permanently weaken them and expand at their expense. The only way to do that is to use all the means at its disposal to befriend the other two or at least make them neutral.

I don't know which patch Czokletmuss is using, so it might not be possible considering the "wants your provinces" opinion malus, but the other penalties can be overcome by improving relations, clever rivalling and guarantees. Pisa in particular, that officially shares the orthodox religion would make a good candidate for an ally, and the Horde could be made neutral once our borders with them are shortened. The Horde are threatened by the Timurids (who are the greatest eastern threat to us) and Pisa is at war with the Xenoi (who are the greatest western threat). Once we only have the Xenoi and Timurids as enemies (and the economy is in order and the civil strife is ended and the heretics are crushed) we should have no trouble regaining our power.

The Xenoi are notoriously poor at projecting power in Europe and the Timurids can be fought with the Horde as the enemy of our enemy. And once we have left our last failed foothold in India we should be able to get the quite strong Bahmanis as allies against the Timurids. They will have no reason to be our rivals when we don't interfere with their sphere of interest and we could be very useful to each others.
 
Your point is a good one, finding allies in Europe will help our cause. I don't believe though that our enemies could ever be swayed to liking us or being neutral toward us.

But,

We need more power. We don't have the strength we need to possibly destroy these powers in the long run, we need to expand before they do. Before China goes uber and becomes an even bigger threat. Before one horde the hordes take it, and before the Aztecs take all the Americas. We need to counter them as much as possible to stop them. If not, we will remain in our isolated afraid state, trying to get people to like us that will probably never like us, and getting allies who aren't fond of us.

We need a more secure position in this world. We need ambition to drive us forward.

Either we take it, or they do.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Finding allies in Europe will help our cause.

Europe is split between the Horde, Xenoi, the Imperium, and the allies of the above like Poland and Lithuania. The ARE no allies to be had unless we carve the out of our enemy's flesh (like Aragon, perhaps we should get Castile and Portugal in a similar arrangement...). We need to remove at least two of the big four from the equation (Pisa, Xenoi, Horde, Timurids). I believe that the Horde and Pisa are the softer of the two. Pisa has lost Xenoi favor and the Horde may be back in a big way, but they lost land to Poland and I believe that their western provinces have most of the base tax, so taking their rich lands will ensure that they are forever broken.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
China is already extremely strong. There's no chance we can conquer them and trying would bankrupt us again. India is mostly controlled by the Bahmanis who are also too strong to easily defeat and could be more useful if befriended and used against the Timmys. Expanding into the south east Asian mainland would eventually put us on a collision with China and would not be helpful for our trade. Expanding into the Malacca and Moluccas trade zones would be profitable, if China did not already have a presence there. That, and Australia might be worth considering, but that would require us to build a large and expensive fleet in the Indian Ocean that would be useless against our main naval threat (which is the Xenoi in the Atlantic and Mediterranean).

East (and South?) Africa is weak, and expanding our colonies there is probably worth while. That does not (likely) expose us to new enemies. But we should keep in mind that the Exarchates will eventually rebel if they become too strong and one of our many rivals support their independence.

We know nothing of the Americas, except that the Xenoi are extremely powerful and have a much stronger fleet than us. Any colonies there would be exposed and isolated in the case of a war with them.

--

It might be impossible to ally any of our current enemies, but we should at least try to make them neutral and focus them against their other rivals. The Horde hates the Timurids and Pisa is fighting the Xenoi. Strategically the Timurids lands are more useful to us (and conquering in that direction would make the borders prettier) and we can never ally the Xenoi. Pisa shares our religion and the strategic effects of fighting them makes mercenaries and loans more expensive. We could coexist with them in the long term and use them against the Xenoi filth.

And I think the current weakness of the Imperium opens an opportunity since some of our enemies unrivalled us when we became too weak for them. That removes one obstacle to better relations.

--

Keep in mind that the rest of the century will probably have to be used to stabilise the Imperium internally and reconquer the rebelling provinces that will declare independence. Attacking any of our main rivals will have to wait for several decades at least, unless an extremely good opportunity presents itself and our other flanks are secure.
 
Last edited:
  • 1
Reactions:
Keep in mind that the rest of the century will probably have to be used to stabilise the Imperium internally and reconquer the rebelling provinces that will declare independence. Attacking any of our main rivals will have to wait for several decades at least, unless an extremely good opportunity presents itself and our other flanks are secure.

Why do you have so little faith?

Why not this?

 
I have to say, I'm with Mach 12 on this. We need to have ambition, not cower and hope for the best. That is not the Roman way.
Serpent, your strategy is a good one, but we need action if we want to stop our enemies.
 
I think that best strategy would be to focus on recovering Xenoi lands. It will be hard but if we get to expel them from Europe our West front would be almost safe and Pisa could be vassalized if not destroyed. In the East, Timurids is the stronger enemy while the Horde is a joke only dangerous when we are extremely weak.

Now well, how to implement the strategy I have pointed, what tactics to follow..I do not know yet. I would go with short wars again imurids and Horde to assure peace (not winning anything from them) and preparation for war against Xenoi. And in my opinion this wars should be focused first in Africa and Hispania, recovering the lands of Africa. Then mainland Europe and finally UK.
 
I don't believe us powerful enough to take on the Aztecs. It will be a very long and hard task to fight the Aztecs as they are (even if they have recently been weakened.) that's why expanding and conquering lands elsewhere than Europe will help us.
 
That's all good guys but first we have to not be destroyed by heretics and separatists. :p
Taking what the Timurids have stolen should be the primary goal. Not crushing them, since every time a war lasts too long someone else keep coming at us. The Horde's territories are kind of pointless since they are poor and of wrong culture/religion. Really I don't know what I would do but I'm confident in Czoklet's abilities. he has shown countless times that he was quite good at the game so there is that. (without his home rules and maluses the Imperium would be on the verge to World Conquest by that time :D )
I don't know which patch Czokletmuss is using,
I think his goal with ISF mod was to be updated to the latest patch. Currently it must be Art of War.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
That's all good guys but first we have to not be destroyed by heretics and separatists. :p
Taking what the Timurids have stolen should be the primary goal. Not crushing them, since every time a war lasts too long someone else keep coming at us. The Horde's territories are kind of pointless since they are poor and of wrong culture/religion. Really I don't know what I would do but I'm confident in Czoklet's abilities. he has shown countless times that he was quite good at the game so there is that. (without his home rules and maluses the Imperium would be on the verge to World Conquest by that time :D )

I think his goal with ISF mod was to be updated to the latest patch. Currently it must be Art of War.

1.11.4 I believe
 
1.11.4 I believe
Yup. I want to switch to 1.15 ASAP. This requires however the mod to be basically completely finished and right now it's still in early alpha.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
There have been some great points mentioned. To start off, we need more allies. Our allies in Europe cannot help the Imperium forever. They do not have the manpower and some have even been seen as untrustworthy. We need strong sturdy alliances who, preferably, border the Timurids and the Horde and we need to cement those allies for the years to come. Strong allies who border the barbaric hordes will make them think twice before attacking the glorius Imperium Romanum. This can be used to our advantage and an internal reconstruction of the Imperium would be in order. I doubt that the Xolal would try to invade for the same reasons.

Expanding and colonizing in our current state would only bring more trouble and more expense. Not only that but the risk of expanding brings more rebels to our land. I think we have plenty now. Furthermore, these two factors can also help contribute to our list of enemies as everyone witnessed with the events unfolding at Ceylon. Finally, the Imperium Romanum should not risk chipping away at the Xolal or hordes every 2 years or so because every time our glorious Imperium commences an attack to regain lost land or to help an ally, we are dragged in a two front war and those never ended well for us. My thoughts are that we have to find a middle ground where we can fund exploration in the east and bolster homeland defenses. Exploration to the east would be purely done to find suitable allies for our cause.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
I doubt that the empire would benefit from alliances from Europe or expanding overseas. In Europe all important powers are historical rivals and have different religions plus they desire Roman provinces. And Pisa , although being a middle power, can easily drag the empire into wars with the Xenoi. About the proposal of Expanding into Asia, I can't see the benefits. Not only it would alienate the Asian countries against the empire , but also overseas provinces have few benefits outside trade, which it is weaker than the one of Europe having the end nodes.

However what can be done is to allied with the Asian powers. India and China could be excellent counters against the hordes, futher securing the position of the empire
 
  • 2
Reactions:
But of course the Blues will probably still be advocating trade and exploration next session to seek out more horrors and powerful enemies for the Imperium to fight (while also working hard to bankrupt the Imperium again)
 
But of course the Blues will probably still be advocating trade and exploration next session to seek out more horrors and powerful enemies for the Imperium to fight (while also working hard to bankrupt the Imperium again)

Oi, haven't you gotten the memo? Its about the Navy and innovation now!

Filthy, overzealous, militaristic Army rat. Can't even recognize improvement when we do it, no wonder Taurinca has fallen to Mongols.

</cheek>
 
OK, small update - the incoming chapter continued to grow so I had to split it in two. Because of this I must refurbish the first part; it is possible that I'll end it and release it today (Warsaw time) but if I won't make it, I'll release it tomorrow.

The Banquet starts on Monday/Tuesday and shall last until Saturday/Sunday.

I really wish I had more time for writing but one has to make do with what available time he has. Considering how slowly things are progressing it is very possible that I'll have to suspend the AAR at some point in order to prepare the transition to 1.15. Right now it seems that working both on the mod and AAR leads nowhere - spending time on mod leaves too little time for releasing AAR chapters as per the schedule and writing can take so much time sometimes that there is none left for the mod (this weekend for instance I spent 0 minutes on the mod). It can't go on like this if the mod is ever going to be released and this AAR reach the end of EU4 - and that's even without considering my other obligations which started to pile-up recently.

Just letting you know.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
OK, small update - the incoming chapter continued to grow so I had to split it in two. Because of this I must refurbish the first part; it is possible that I'll end it and release it today (Warsaw time) but if I won't make it, I'll release it tomorrow.

The Banquet starts on Monday/Tuesday and shall last until Saturday/Sunday.

I really wish I had more time for writing but one has to make do with what available time he has. Considering how slowly things are progressing it is very possible that I'll have to suspend the AAR at some point in order to prepare the transition to 1.15. Right now it seems that working both on the mod and AAR leads nowhere - spending time on mod leaves too little time for releasing AAR chapters as per the schedule and writing can take so much time sometimes that there is none left for the mod (this weekend for instance I spent 0 minutes on the mod). It can't go on like this if the mod is ever going to be released and this AAR reach the end of EU4 - and that's even without considering my other obligations which started to pile-up recently.

Just letting you know.
Thanks for sharing.
It might be better to focus on what you deems more important instead of trying to do both indeed.

Can't wait for the update to kick in though :)