Zoroafrica or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace My Bad Ideas [1.21]

[atwix]

That's where things get cheesy: rebels aren't meant to be good for your nation.

disasters aren't meant to be good for your nation eiher; but players do let estate take over to avoid more nasty disasters, they let absolutism age disaster trigger for absolutism cap bonus, and let revolution disaster trigger to flip revolutionary target government.

its not cheesy, its part of optimal gameplay these days

but yeah triggering 50 stacks of pretenders only to collapse to them and getting full force limit army for free, or estate rebel bombs and the like are kinda cheesy.

 

[Tom D.]

its not cheesy, its part of optimal gameplay these days

Pfff, you EU4 veterans are killing the game doing all that .

 

[firezatswill9]

disasters aren't meant to be good for your nation eiher; but players do let estate take over to avoid more nasty disasters, they let absolutism age disaster trigger for absolutism cap bonus, and let revolution disaster trigger to flip revolutionary target government.

its not cheesy, its part of optimal gameplay these days

but yeah triggering 50 stacks of pretenders only to collapse to them and getting full force limit army for free, or estate rebel bombs and the like are kinda cheesy.

There is that fine line between optimal and cheesy, but it's often smudged based off what your goals are. In my recent India campaign, I let sikh rebels take over every last province while I hid my army in Baluchistan during a phony war, and then broke to them after we peaced out for 5 ducats. That's something that's kinda cheesy, but it's also optimal when trying to convert large swaths of land with minimal effort and some minor damage in your income.

Now I'm curious if you could do a One Faith run where you own almost every province directly (so you can have a phony war to prevent breaking), and then let zealots rise up and run amok in your country, converting everything exponentially faster due to more rebels popping up, due to having more land controlled.

 

[firezatswill9]

Chapter 11: Kham the Builder

Where we last left off, we were being more frugal with our loans. And then I had a chat with @atwix and @Tom D., and one of the topics that came up was buildings. So...

After realizing we could take a mind numbing 75 loans of nearly 1K ducats each, I figured that taking our a loan or thirty would be a good way to build manufacturies and temples and FL buildings, as per the advice I had received. Which put us in the red, but with a healthy buffer of twenty loans or so, to avoid a premature bankruptcy. I don't think I show when I took the loans, but it was in the mid to late 1630s.

We were also considering an attack on Persia, but after a glance at their idea groups and their tech level, I had some second thoughts. Defensive + offensive + Persian ideas + Shia (maybe also + pious) would mean we'd practically be fighting at half morale when the battles start.

They don't have all that much in the way of troops, though. How about their generals?

Persia has the best general in the world right now, at least for fighting. So... I think I hear Africa calling

Ah, yes. Ethiopia. Once a proud coptic nation, now just a small bit of blue on the horn. And we have one main goal: Kaffa!

Ha! Ha-ha! HA! No way am I dropping an alliance AND fighting the Ottomans for YOUR sake, Austria! Auf wiedersehen, Von Habsburg!

We're making our way down the tech tree, and tech 17 is in sight! Sweet, sweet admin efficiency and universities!

Free stab? Don't mind if I do!

Here's how our ONLY battle went.

It's neck-in-neck!

Send these fake Christians back to their mountains!

Victory, but those losses reassured me that NOT attacking Persia was the right idea.

More good events, please! I'm probably cashing in all my luck now, but hey, at least I had some to cash in!

We're also working on dip tech, mostly for more accepted cultures, and for the trade center/depot/thing that costs 500 ducats base.

More good events (seriously, this is nuts), and more importantly, tech 17! We've got a few universities being built right now. Enough to at least get more splendor from them!

We also declare war on Sakalava. Why? Maybe we just don't like them and their funny lookin' flag!

Or maybe it's to make sure they don't form a coalition with Spain and co. But it's most definitely the former

Finally, we take this event. While the mil points would be great, we took the admin and prestige. Why, you ask?

It's simple. 190 is larger than 100

Mo' rebels, mo' problems.

Spain!

How dare they interrupt our Madagascan safari!

But hey, we have our ally here for once, so even with their million and a half CNs, we're pretty evenly matched!

And Spain's navy, once again, is using 45 ships to transport a single stack. Brilliant, simply brilliant strategy. Straight from Sun Tzu's lesser known work, "The Art of What?"

We ended our war with Sakalava unceremoniously. Getting money is nice, since we didn't want their land. Yet.

Absolutely masterful! Use your transports to ferry a single unit over to Ifni! It's not like there's a straight between Gibraltar and that other province! Pretty crafty, Spain!

And we're now able to get our fifth idea group, one that's been a LONG time coming. Offensive, because I'm tired to losing battles due to terrible discipline and morale and ICA and generals and... well, everything really.

Also, after having spent 13 months, with NO CONTESTION in Iberia, Spain FINALLY managed to siege down our ONLY direct holding in Iberia.

I think they may have been partaking in some of the "devil's lettuce". Or maybe they were too busy going to church and performing inquisitions. Who knows.

By chance, I spotted this when I was dealing with Omani rebels. Scary...

And our staunch and talented ally, Morocco, is doing well in defense of their homeland from the Spanish! How, you ask? Simple, they're attacking INTO mountains, to kill the Austrians.

Did I mention that half of their land is sieged by the Spanish? Because it is.

Looks like the winged hussars didn't arrive this time

Also, Portugal decided to join in the fun. So we sieged their land in Africa and got more WS from that.

We FINALLY got our first splendor bonus of the age, and it's obvious that we'd choose the one that gives us annual absolutism.

And we now have mil tech 19! Unfortunately, most everyone I'd want to attack is on the same level, meaning it's not much of a beat down tech as I had hoped it would have been

Here's the peace deal. I still don't understand how letting your land get sieged up and not participating in the war gives MORE participation than sieging land up. So we only get 3 of the 200 ducats we asked for.

And here's something kinda odd: an Ethiopian province is Zoroastrian, even though we've not lost any land. Must have had one of those events, but still, that's neat.

And it looks like Spain just killed the Iberian alliance with this move. But will it matter in the end, if they get a PU?

It doesn't, Portugal gets an heir almost immediately after, and they end up without an alliance.

We spent 100 dip to change out Bahmanis from our rival slot, to France. Why?

This is why. We're going to need to fight the Turks in the end of the campaign, but for now, they're a good deterrent. And they hate Persia, too, so getting them to fight my war for me should be easy!

Our last building is done on the 2nd of September, 1641. So that means we cannot go bankrupt until October, 1646, just to be on the safe side.

In the meantime, we go for another sizeable alliance, just in case the Ottomans decide they don't like us for no reason, like some other DUMB NATION I know about.

Yeah, I'm talking about you, France!

Repay our loans, huh? Well, I can guarantee you this, those loans, they WILL go away pretty soon!

Asia just got revealed, and man, Japan looks funky. I've never seen Ouchi be the victor, let alone sandwich the Uesugi!

Never seen this event before. But I don't like it now that I have

Spain is free to declare on us, but with the Ottomans on our side, I think we're fine

New king took the throne, stats are pretty good. Just wish we had that five in one of the OTHER mana types, but oh well.

Okay, I'm sure there's going to be SOMETHING that comes around and just bites me in the ass later on. Too much luck. And this means that when we go bankrupt, we're going to be at 0 stab, so we won't have a massive influx of unrest!

And then we were called into a war against Timbuktu and Mali. But we don't care enough to help. Just wish that the Ottomans were in this war as well, that'd make it so much easier to keep them as an ally during bankruptcy.

And then we got another average claim heir. Not bad, but not great either.

Right now, we're looking for a war to declare that would let the Ottomans stay allied to me. Only issue is that they have 6k in debt, and I can't take on that debt because they're a great power. So getting them into a war isn't going so swimmingly. I already have the particularists ready to go, so all I need is a phoney 5 year war. Or a war with Persia + Bahmanis, that'd keep the Turks occupied.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 

[Tom D.]

And Spain's navy, once again, is using 45 ships to transport a single stack. Brilliant, simply brilliant strategy. Straight from Sun Tzu's lesser known work, "The Art of What?"

That this is still a thing with AI, unbelievable...

And it looks like Spain just killed the Iberian alliance with this move. But will it matter in the end, if they get a PU?

It doesn't, Portugal gets an heir almost immediately after, and they end up without an alliance.

And that's stupid too: Paradox changed it so that they do claim thrones now but they NEVER seem to declare war for it. Even if the target doesn't get an heir in time, and it's not because they still have an alliance or a truce, that breaks the moment they claim it. *sigh* Good chapter by the way.

 

[stnylan]

The Art of What cracked me up.

 

[atwix]

Persia has the best general in the world right now, at least for fighting. So... I think I hear Africa calling

well spotted

getting allies during bankruptcy was more important.

We spent 100 dip to change out Bahmanis from our rival slot, to France. Why?

This is why. We're going to need to fight the Turks in the end of the campaign, but for now, they're a good deterrent. And they hate Persia, too, so getting them to fight my war for me should be easy!

you seem to know your diplo game

tip: you could promise ottomans and milan austrian land, to get them in a war during bankruptcy. if ottomans and milan don't have a diplomatic ruler personality. unlikely though

 

[firezatswill9]

Chapter 12: Bankruptcy 2: The Bankruptening

Where we left off, we were looking to get into a phoney war with the Ottomans, so that they'd stay our ally during bankruptcy.

Here's the map of the world, I realized I never really showed off the state of the world. We're the world's 2nd most powerful nation, according to the GP page. We're only 700 dev behind the Ottomans.

Rebellions are keeping the Ottomans busy. And it showcases how bad the AI is at avoiding attrition.

Seriously, they only needed maybe 30 troops, tops, to put down that rebellion. But nope, it's better to make a doom stack and eat 4-5% attrition everywhere!

And to think that I had been wondering why it had been so hard to get them to join a war...

And since we're planning on losing these points anyways, may as well invest in tech. Sooner we can get nationalism CB, sooner we can forget about diplo tech.

And we choose the obvious winner for our second splendor ability.

Here's a closer look as to what the Turks are dealing with. I give up...

Bad event number one. Seriously, I had literally JUST given the clergy more land to milk them for points, and I get this event. Ugh.

Now, everyone, look and learn. The easiest way to kill the turk is... to not do anything. They're well known for sending their troops to the gulags in the mountains of Georgia for even the smallest infractions.

Spain got their alliance back, after definitely not planning on backstabbing the Portuguese for their throne. That was SO not the plan, ha ha ha!

While we were waiting for the Turks to get their act together, we decide for a quick crusade. Just a short one, a diet crusade, if you will.

Since Darfur took Ethiopia's fort, we peaced out for just a couple of core revocations. Didn't want a long war, since the Turks are wild and unpredictable.

But, I did decide to burn all our manpower and make 100k actual troops, to be ready for our bankruptcy. At this point, I'm ready to declare, even at the cost of my alliances. But for now, this is just to make sure we have an army during the down time, and to give our manpower pool time to recover.

Okay, this rustled my jimmies. I can't call them into a war against the Austrians because "Oh no, we have too much debt, what would you be able to do, you just have an army of equal size to ours!", but then they go and start a war with them, and they don't even call me in to help!

Ugh. There is a good thing that comes out of this, though.

Also, we're just a TAD over the FL. I mean, it's JUST an extra 120 ducats a month on no maintenance. Chump change, am I right?

Well, here's one last look at our economy before we bite the bullet. Look at that glorious 84.23% inflation. Bigger numbers is always a good thing, right? As a wise man once said "more is more"

Remember that mission to pay off our loans? Well, while I don't have a screenshot showing the result, I think this will illustrate what happened quite well:

And here we are, post bankruptcy. Now we're making cash hand over fist. And we're no longer over the FL, well, until we accepted particularist demands. Then we were slightly over the FL. Oh well.

I may or may not have forgotten that we were still at war with Timbuktu, so we couldn't lower autonomy just yet.

And, as expected, Milan doesn't want to be buddies with a guy who has no money. Well, except that we do. I dunno, guys, it's weird, man.

Now we can FINALLY lower our autonomy! And good to see that Morocco FINALLY got their act together and ate Timbuktu.

Now we're sitting JUST outside of the range for C&C disaster. Well, that's fine. We can't get into a war anyways.

Bye Milan! If you don't fight us later, we'll have to do lunch!

I particularly like Spanish or French in my belly

Bye Morocco! We'll see you in 4 years!

Good event number 1. Getting an extra stab will be nice, both for the unrest reduction, and for the absolutism boost.

MALI, MORE REBELLIONS?! Do I NEED to find more songs about rebels, so I can shout them at you? DON'T THINK I WON'T!

Meanwhile, it looks like the Ottomans are going to be in this war for a while. Good, because in my test games, an AI will not drop your alliance so long as they are in a war.

And Morocco WILL ally us again, once we're no longer lame and all bankrupt-y.

But Milan would not. WELP! If we cross paths with Milan in the future, WE'LL BE HAVING ITALIAN FOR DINNER!

This was a really pleasant surprise, I don't think I've every had Manufactories spawn in my lands before. So this is a nice bump.

I just wish it would have spawned in one of the provinces NEXT to Buganda. Buganda was developed for the renaissance earlier, while the others haven't been touched. Oh well, I'm not complaining. Oh, and remember how I said we couldn't get into a war? I was wrong.

FRANCE!

And we lost our Turkish ally! NOW it's personal!

But, the Ottomans DO want that alliance back. So once we're done with this war, we'll be able to get it back.

Funnily enough, we're evenly matched, in terms of raw troop count. And, given that a good amount are in CNs, we're pretty much safe.

And we even got a rare naval victory while we were ferrying troops around Africa, nice!

Looks like these guys are more competent than the Iberians, going for my only holding in mainland Europe

And it looks like France is scouting the waters. But still no transports.

THERE'S the transports! But... they have 33, why are they only using 6? ARE THEY MOCKING US?!

How DARE THEY!

And I have no words for this level of stupidity. So please, insert your own comment... here.

France can't even blockade us right. I mean, jeez, AI fleets don't event get naval attrition, so them having no open ports shouldn't matter.

Also, OH NO, REBELS. IF ONLY THERE WAS ANOTHER NATION WITH OMANI CORES!

Oh wait, Persia does. We're kosher

Ottomans are now winning their war, so we gotta wrap up pretty fast.

OK, that's what I'd call an invasion force. Time to rally the troops and RUN LIKE HELL!

We have the bankruptcy modifier until 1657, so we just gotta hold out for two years. Yaaaaay...

And, before you even say anything @atwix, France was having NONE of the "release an interior African nation". It was either give them land with gold production, or release Malindi. Both weren't going to happen, ever.

Yeah, we can't kill rebels, so... I really don't want to fight France right now

 

[firezatswill9]

Unfortunately France went for our capital, so we HAD to fight. AND WE'RE GOING ALL IN! WIN OR DIE, THERE IS NO OTHER OPTION!

Need more dakka, need more dakka!

FILL THAT BACK ROW WITH CANNONS, AND BLAST THESE BAGUETTES BACK TO PARIS!

MORE CANNONS!

Full row of cannons, and the most morale we will ever have, it's sink or swim now!

Break their will! (Breaking their spines is an acceptable substitute)

Getting down to the wire, here!

HOLD ON, MEN! KILL THEM HARDER!

YOU IN THE FORTS! GET OUT HERE AND EARN YOUR LIVES!

Hanging on by the skin of our teeth!

Total. Stackwipe.

If you're confused, we killed them faster than they could kill our morale. Since morale damage is based off of your max morale (and our current max is 2.7), we were killing a LOT, and doing little morale damage. And even though we lost more on paper, I'd wager this was more painful for France.

And, since we're no longer running a million mercs, war taxes cut our reinforcement costs in half.

Our two most hated enemies are killing each other, how sweet

Uh-oh, looks like the Ottomans are out of their war. Hope they still like us!

Now, we have our morale back, so it's time for some good old frog killing! We position our troops in the mountains, knowing that the French cannot resist a challenge.

And the rest of the French army is stuck in France. Nice!

And we finally finish admin ideas, now we have really cheap tech!

True to my intuition, France moves in to attack us in the mountains. We wait for them to get movement locked, then get our army moving in to reinforce.

Hi France, come to lose yet another stack?

You have?! Great!

More frogs coming to the slaughter.

Like I said, I'll gladly eliminate another stack!

Wait a second... what on Earth happened to the other troops? There was another 20 men aboard these transports, and now they're gone. Umm... Maybe they went for a swim?

Right now, we have enough mil points to get another idea, or wait for tech. Or... we could get absolutism

Oh no, a disaster. I hope it doesn't fire

This is our peace, we took all the African colonies that the French and Brittanese made.

And now we have our big ally back!

I like you, Ottomans. That's why I'm going to kill you last.

And now we also have Morocco back. Cool beans.

Okay, Yemen's got a marriage with the Ottomans. Uh... Yeah, let's solve that potential problem, right now.

No one will help anyone, so it's time to eat Yemen, with no consequences.

And I'll leave it off there. I was originally going to skip past the bankruptcy years, but they ended up being more interesting than I thought they would be. Now, we're ready to get our disaster and really start rolling over Africa, Asia, and bits of Europe.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

 

[firezatswill9]

Anyhow, that 8k ottoman debt really destroyed your alliance..

I hope you can hold out.

Releasing Malindi huh? That doesn't sound that bad.

But if they don't get the war goal, you can likely just sit out this war.

Ideal would have been to drag all your allies in versus common target, after Ottoman Dow. You could have avoided France attack most likely if you had gunned down Iberia. But, did you have 10 favours with Milan yet? If not, the situation you are in is likely the only outcome.

stuff never happens as planned in this game, right?

p.s: allies never break alliance while at war, yes.

Well, I'm actually fine with the Ottoman debt, it will actually make things easier down the line, should they keep that debt. I just mainly wanted their numbers to make me look threatening on paper.

Also remember, Malindi was fed most of the Horn, and a good portion of the east coast, so releasing them would cost 98% WS.

And I think I had 6 favors with Milan, so yeah, this was unavoidable.

I do hope that showing multiple shots of the combat with France wasn't bad for reading, I wanted to show how intensely I watched it, and how close it was on multiple occasions.

 

[atwix]

moved due to being in middle of AAR posts

manufactories origin next to lake victoria.

sounds legit.



it all depends on ruler personality I guess.

Oh well.

Anyhow, that 8k ottoman debt really destroyed your alliance..

I hope you can hold out.

Releasing Malindi huh? That doesn't sound that bad.

But if they don't get the war goal, you can likely just sit out this war.

Ideal would have been to drag all your allies in versus common target, after Ottoman Dow. You could have avoided France attack most likely if you had gunned down Iberia. But, did you have 10 favours with Milan yet? If not, the situation you are in is likely the only outcome.

stuff never happens as planned in this game, right?

p.s: allies never break alliance while at war, yes.

 

[atwix]

Wait a second... what on Earth happened to the other troops? There was another 20 men aboard these transports, and now they're gone. Umm... Maybe they went for a swim?

huh.

No one will help anyone, so it's time to eat Yemen, with no consequences.

in before ottomans enforce peace.

well, i wonder if an AI enforces peace on ally.

Think not.

Well spotted, that RM.

 

[stnylan]

That was a rather exciting battle!

 

[Tom D.]

Here's the map of the world, I realized I never really showed off the state of the world. We're the world's 2nd most powerful nation, according to the GP page. We're only 700 dev behind the Ottomans.

*sigh* Ming...

And we choose the obvious winner for our second splendor ability.

I think I asked thisin mackwolfe's AAR too but does this 5% AE actually make a real difference? The bonus seems so small to me.

Okay, this rustled my jimmies. I can't call them into a war against the Austrians because "Oh no, we have too much debt, what would you be able to do, you just have an army of equal size to ours!", but then they go and start a war with them, and they don't even call me in to help!

Is it just because of this AAR or does the AI really behaves like sh**? Never noticed how bad the AI was until now (or I was blind the whole time).

What is that popup? Is it Galicia requesting March status? Can they ask for that themselves?

France can't even blockade us right. I mean, jeez, AI fleets don't event get naval attrition, so them having no open ports shouldn't matter.

You what, they don't get naval attrition? And even with that the AI behaves like sh**? I'm losing my trust in Paradox...

Total. Stackwipe.

If you're confused, we killed them faster than they could kill our morale. Since morale damage is based off of your max morale (and our current max is 2.7), we were killing a LOT, and doing little morale damage. And even though we lost more on paper, I'd wager this was more painful for France.

Wow, that was impressive.

 

[firezatswill9]

I think I asked thisin mackwolfe's AAR too but does this 5% AE actually make a real difference? The bonus seems so small to me.


Is it just because of this AAR or does the AI really behaves like sh**? Never noticed how bad the AI was until now (or I was blind the whole time).


What is that popup? Is it Galicia requesting March status? Can they ask for that themselves?


You what, they don't get naval attrition? And even with that the AI behaves like sh**? I'm losing my trust in Paradox...

5% admin efficiency is definitely worth it. In addition to making land cost less OE, as well as take less WS to grab, it will speed up integrations. And, don't quote me on this, I BELIEVE it does impact the amount of AE you get, due to the land being considered to be worth less. But I could be wrong on that, I haven't done any testing with that.

The AI has always been kinda wonky with me, especially if any debt is involved. I rarely ally the Ottomans because I want their help in wars, it's usually to make sure they don't attack me until I'm ready to brawl.

Yeah, Galicia is requesting to be a march. Vassals have been able to do that, I think since it was implemented back in AoW. I'm still not sure if I want them to be a march, or if I'll need to integrate them to get past the 2k dev. Probably won't need them, but it's better to be safe. Plus, they're not fighting in any of my wars, so it's kinda pointless atm.

And yeah, the AI gets several "cheats" to cope with their inability to play efficiently. There was a whole dev post about it in the main forum, but I'll run through a few things that I know of.

The AI can see the entire world, regardless of what TI is there for the player, or if the fog of war would keep them from seeing an area. They just pretend to not be able to see. That's actually a common workaround in strategy games, so it's only noticeable in a few occasions.

No naval attrition. The AI is terrible at managing their fleets, so if this didn't exist, they'd lose all their ships and bankruptcy spiral due to rebuilding their fleet every 3-5 years.

They have one extra diplomat and leader slot. That's due to them being bad at managing their diplomats (they only use them once a month, whereas humans could use them 50 times if they so desired), and they're not good at deciding when they need more leaders, so this is to prevent them from constantly being behind tech.

Those are just a few, they're not terrible, but they are definitely noticeable after playing for a while.

 

[Tom D.]

Hope you didn't mind my little rant , I was really surprised by the incompetence of the AI, never really experienced such bad behavior myself (although it's a long time since I decently played EU4). Thanks for the information.

 

[firezatswill9]

Chapter 13: Morocco is Absolutely Flawless

Where we last left off, we were destroying Yemen's hopes of an alliance with the Turks. Although, even if they DID get the alliance, I doubt it would do them any good.

One of the rare times when I get this event and could actually use both prestige AND legitimacy. Well worth the price.

Die Yemen, die!

Get outta here.

In the peace deal, we end up taking most of their land that's connected to any other countries. In hindsight, we should have cut them off entirely from Persia and the Turks, but I didn't want to lose my indirect war with Persia, since I think guarantees only work if the AI is bordering the nation.

In other news, we have the second largest army on earth, behind Ming, of course.

I've actually never seen this mission before. I'd take it, but it's not really worth the cost and time it'd take. We'd rather get the manpower recovery from taking Luanda.

Man, conquest is easy-peasy!

Next, to make sure our war exhaustion and unrest don't drop too low, we declare war on Sakalava. Time to put them out of our misery.

Tech 20 vs tech 13. Any questions?

Next is the 3rd best ability of the Absolutism age. Worth its weight in gold if you don't have ideas that reduce unrest/separatism, which we don't. Otherwise, the -50% cooldown time for lowering autonomy is better, IMO.

Now, I want to highlight Cusco for a minute. They've beaten the Europeans in every war I've seen them in, so I went to see their tech. 12. They're on mil tech 12. Here's how I think these wars go.

Europeans - "Take their gold, kill them all!"
Cusco - "We have spears of sharp rock and shields made of leopard hides!"
Europeans - "Mary, Joseph and Jesus, these guys are nuts! RUN AWAY!"

I'm fairly certain that's EXACTLY how it goes.

Huh. I thought Spain was always our rival. Huh. Weird.

Now we own the entirety of Madagascar. In turn, we also own all of the Zanzibar trade node, finally! Now we just need to get Indonesia dealt with, but that'll come later. Right now, we have bigger things on our plate.

With some manipulation of our rivals (we removed France, since Milan has them as an ally, and replaced them with Ming, who no one we care about is allied to), we reclaimed our alliance with Milan. Our old buddy, Milan! Man, we go waaaaaaay back! I remember when they backstabbed me, fun times.

And just in time, too. Things were going swimmingly, until...

SPAIN, you rotten swine!

And Ottomans, you traitorous she-dog!

I really wish you could control who you call into defensive wars, instead of just automatically calling in everyone. I'd have left out the Turks, since I knew they'd never help me.

A look at the numbers of each side, for those who are interested. I'm actually surprised that we have more troops, given that Poland joined.

Also, Milan has redeemed themselves in my eyes. So yeah, they're cool. Morocco is cool, too.

This is very nice, but we're going to hold off on taking the stab for just another month. I hear you asking "why do that?", to which I have to say "how on earth did you get in my house?! I JUST changed the locks, too! Get out before I call the cops!"

This is why we waited, just in case the extra stab would have put us out of the range for the disaster to start. And since we're going to be getting a plethora of events that give us absolutism, we go for the - unrest option. It'll save us a LOT of headaches in the long run, since this disaster will run for, at minimum, 10 years.

Morocco's already going to work in Iberia. Go Morocco, go!

So is Milan! I'm... at a loss. Our allies are... DOING THINGS?! I'm flabbergasted, usually they just sit there and lose battles!

Also, @Tom D., this screenshot should really intrigue you. 69k spaniards sitting in Valencia, while Morocco sieges down Granada. At least it's not 5% attrition.

But look, Spain is trying to alleviate the siege! 2k men is a LOT of people, you know

Now, I'm not going to show every event for the Court and Country disaster. If you've never experienced it, just know that most are like this.

Also, this kinda confuses me. No nation has a core on this land, yet there are Najdi separatists. AFAIK, Najd never had control of this land, Shammar did.

Rebels popped due to unrest from lowering autonomy. 150k rebels seems REALLY EXCESSIVE, though. That's a full 25k more than our max force limit

We peace out Mantau, and to show our appreciation, we give Milan one of their provinces, and the vast majority of their treasury. NOTE: this didn't give them any favors with us, which I found odd. Oh well.

Here's the other event that happens often. I chose the manpower, since we're running low from fighting all these rebellions. We're slowly replacing half of our infantry with mercs, but that's a slow process.

Seriously, Morocco, you're the bomb, mate!

I think I found a new country to put on my "AI countries I like" list.

Meanwhile, Milan is doing work in Naples, and Poland is counter-sieging them.

Look! Troops are being transported! I mean, 4k is pretty substantial, right?

Here's the reason we're not up in Iberia, kicking Spanish teeth in. We've got our army spread out strategically to deal with any uprisings from events.

Wow, after 3 years, Spain FINALLY took the war goal!

Oh, never mind. Morocco's got this.

Spain's main army is FINALLY on the move. I mean, good lord that took forever.

The funniest thing is, they split up to take back some of the lands, but once Morocco came back, they ran back to Valencia. Dunno why, but it was pretty funny to see.

Usually, this event is kinda useless to me, but given the situation, we gladly take the extra unrest reduction, price be damned.

Spanish Italy is pretty much all sieged up, and Morocco is getting back to work on Iberia.

Also, the Turks hate us because we have a single province they want. Maybe if we sell it to them, we'll be cool again. But really, that was out of left field.

Milan ended up surrendering for an annulment of our alliance, but they'll gladly have us back. I mean, we DID give them Mantau, after all

Morocco, hard at work. They're truly the MVP here, hence why they get their own chapter named after their exploits.

Spain FINALLY landed in Africa. Too bad it's the part I couldn't care any less about

Morocco is knocking on Madrid's door. This is too good. We could peace out at any time, but we want to BREAK the Spanish as much as we can.

Ah, now I see why Spain went to Africa. They wanted to suffer more attrition than they could suffer in Valencia. Uh, great tactic, guys

This is our peace deal. We didn't give anything to Morocco, since I didn't want to. But we DID take two of Spain's level 6 forts, so future wars will be much more swift.

Don't worry, Morocco, I'll actually do work in the next war you drag me into, you deserve that much, at least

Galicia, home of Europe's ugliest border!

More wars won by Cusco. Just to prove my point I made earlier.

And, just as suddenly as they decided to hate us, the Turks decided that they love us. I just don't care anymore, just give me this pitiful excuse of an alliance.

OK, I'm really confused now, Najd now has a core where they had none before. I know rebels are really, REALLY stupid this patch, but jeez!

We're at the target mark for absolutism, have been for a while now. We just need a few more years to pass.

I find this really funny. Spain just lost a war against us (well, Morocco. We were giving words of encouragement from the Congo), so of course they can take the Brits!

BTW, GB peaced out with France for a white peace right as this happened.

SPAIN! You are going to die, no doubt about it!

It looks like you CAN learn as to who is sowing discontent. Only way to stop that is to kill them, AFAIK.

Milan still wants that alliance, just five more years, buddy!

And we've ended our disaster, exactly 10 years since the screenshot I took of it starting. We've now a max absolutism of 107, and that's with 60 legitimacy. So once we get to 100, we should have 115, if my math is right.

I think I'll end off with the religion tab of the ledger. Zoroastrian is the third most popular religion in the world, and will keep growing more popular as time goes on.

In the next chapter, I think we're taking trip to the east indies, I heard they have these great spices!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 

[atwix]

Also, @Tom D., this screenshot should really intrigue you. 69k spaniards sitting in Valencia, while Morocco sieges down Granada. At least it's not 5% attrition.

common problem with colonizers unfortunatly. i bug reported it with saves a lot, never a response...

Also, this kinda confuses me. No nation has a core on this land, yet there are Najdi separatists. AFAIK, Najd never had control of this land, Shammar did.

no cores on the land doesn't mean no rebels. rebels spawn there because najd is main nation of bedouin culture. if they occupy said land, they create najd cores on all bedouin land.

We peace out Mantau, and to show our appreciation, we give Milan one of their provinces, and the vast majority of their treasury. NOTE: this didn't give them any favors with us, which I found odd. Oh well.

you can never get favors with allies in seperate peace deals.

OK, I'm really confused now, Najd now has a core where they had none before. I know rebels are really, REALLY stupid this patch, but jeez!

WAD

 

[Tom D.]

And just in time, too. Things were going swimmingly, until...

SPAIN, you rotten swine!

A Spanish inquisition joke never fails to amuse.

Also, @Tom D., this screenshot should really intrigue you. 69k spaniards sitting in Valencia, while Morocco sieges down Granada. At least it's not 5% attrition.

But look, Spain is trying to alleviate the siege! 2k men is a LOT of people, you know

Hmm, intriguing, fascinating and horrible at the same time... And it's a mountain fort, they would crush Morocco without any problem.

Rebels popped due to unrest from lowering autonomy. 150k rebels seems REALLY EXCESSIVE, though. That's a full 25k more than our max force limit

Welcome to EU4 .

 

[stnylan]

Oh Spain ... there is nothing left to say