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The Ottoman Empire won't join our cause as long as we're at war, but a chance to take Persia almost for free will never come again. We have to stay in, as exhausting as it may sound.

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Mamluks got peaced out and lost 2 cores to Tunis.
Doesn't look like they got slammed.

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Our troops are almost in position, Ajam refuses to join. Good for us.

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Great power actions need to get checked. Another mandatory thing. Rarely available, but the option to force an enemy out of future wars pays off.

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Avaria, Beja and Hadramut are willing to join our family.
We are already at twice our limit though. Mental note is made for Beja, who are sitting south of Mamluks.

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Another war against Najd sounds tempting. Defeat Mamluks, force them to annull treaties.
We couldn't take any provinces though. AE is still an issue and will continue to be one. Fighting Mamluks solo for no gain besides a few desert provinces doesn't sound appealing.
Najd is over 50% WS, but their only ally is Mamluks. We set them as co-belligerent and declare on Mamluks.

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Only one rebel steck is threatening us. Both provinces over 10 unrest. We take the risk and increase autonomy, giving them a 2.5% chance to revolt, decreasing yearly until 1529.
Troops are moving in. First goal is to peace out Najd while distracting Mamluks north without fighting.

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Here they come!
Only a part of their army arrives though. We will take the gamble and gather our troops.
Dimashq is drylands thankfully. Getting attacked will not give us a malus.

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We split up our armies to siege faster, but haven't seen Yemen's army yet. A huge risk, but that's what leading a country while tired makes you do.

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Despite a rather speedy general our troops arrive late. They will arrive in Suwayda on the same day the battle of Dimashq begins.
18.700 troops against 28.000, 17.000 of which arrive with delay. We're starting to doubt the gamble is going to pay off.

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Hisn Kayfa's soldiers are getting utterly shredded. Combat is prolonged due to bad rolls on both sides, Mamluks have almost managed to bring in reinforcements. Why are we still fighting despite outflanking the enemy, no malus suffered and having more cannons than them?

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WHAT IS THIS MORALE?
Our spies gave no warning!
Always check the ledger, always check the ledger, always check the ledger.

4.7 against 4.1 with almost equal numbers means a rough war lies ahead. It may be time for mercenaries. Forcelimit is reached. A costly investment, if made.

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At least not all humor is lost. Occupying their lands for half a decade apparently made them ambivalent towards us.
Is respect out of fear an unknown concept to them?

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Our frontline has been broken! All available men report, call in the reserves! And can someone get rid of that rebel stack? Of course 2.5% sufficed.

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It is almost painful to watch. A -2 modifier may be harsh, but we fully outflank them, even have cavalry units and are using more than twice their cannons.
I guess it's too early for cannons to take effect. Why didn't we pick up two more mounted units? It would've been the perfect timing.

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With half their army infiltrating and our main stack being defeated they close in on our siege units.
Our experts have managed to tear down those walls in a timely manner and Najd is fully occupied.

Time to peace out and escape.

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Looking at all the pain he caused our glorious leader dies of a broken heart.
His heir will now take the throne and as a first course of action the war against Najd will end.
The time to siege down Aflaj simply wasn't there and we couldn't wait any longer.
Leaving the Ottoman Empire with a very trusted and completely worthless ally. Leaving Najd alive was the desired outcome after all.
Our vassal Haasa grows.

We export our rebels into QQ. They're not strong enough to take them down sadly, but it gives us a few more months to breathe.

When suddenly

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HUSSAH! The war is over! We're finally at war!

Timurids, as the former overlord, is now warleader. We could vassalize them, but that would leave Khorosan out of our sphere of influence.
Time to siege down their capital and wrap up the east.

Our nation was in dire need of good news :)

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A lot of maneuvering takes place in the north to make sure none of our provinces get sieged down.
Mamluks managed to get one, costing us prosperity in that state, but all other provinces are being spared from devastation.
A lot of micro is the exact opposite of what we were aiming for in this campaign.

Hopes were high that our vassal in the south could grow a bit as well, but this isn't Mahra's day.
Yemen's capital can not be reached and sieging a lvl2 fort, their capital and unsieging Mahra for an appropriate warscore would simply be too much. We decide to hope for the best, move on one of their forts and get the white peace so we can focus on Mamluks.

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Checking available advisors we realize another rookie mistake. Increased force limit is not on the list of things we want to have in our hardest war so far.
A morale advisor is needed, but level 2?

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Our nation is so broke, it stopped being funny. Inflation gets reduced by 2 and we make a mental note to hire the advisor.
Not doing it yet though. As long as we get a monthly tick in before a fight happens we will have max morale. Something to watch out for, but something that'll save us 5 ducats a month until we hire him.

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Mamluks are moving south

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We are running away.

There's no point in fighting them right now. We may be able to take out Yemen's forces who are sieging down a lvl2 fort in Qatif.
Coastal desert. No malus for them.

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Ohhh god, this is too good to be true.

No allies, so many cores, we need to make a move here, fast!

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Another war while we can barely handle Mamluks sound risky. Very risky. But the chance needs to be taken.
Lots of flat terrain make a successful defensive fight impossible. We retreat to Ar-Raqqa, send a stack south to siege and hope for another split or attack over the river.

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Yemen has one third of their army, high enthusiasm and we still have low morale.
Didn't we kill the weaklings at the start of our campaign? Must be their sons who have found a way into Hisn Kayfa's ranks again.

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Flee like the chicken you are. Our troops are too mighty for you.
Or it's because the AI got improved a lot. We're almost yearning for the stupid version of older days.

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How is this siege not finished yet? If we had a cannon in there we could barrage, but we do not.
Our great oversight and macro play has severely dampered our ability to micro apparently.
Or maybe it's fatigue. Been a long day.

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Sistan's provinces under siege. We need to wrap up this war and vassalize both.

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Never look away from a war. Mamluks have come back and our greedy eyes were glued to the east. This will not end well.

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They arrive on the 31st October, we get there one day sooner with the help of our general.
He knows the lands better than anyone else, but his combat skills are lacking.
None of our other troops can assign a general since they're in hostile territory.

Sometimes you need to make the best out of a bad situation. CHARGE!

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Successfully deterred. No combat took place. The fight starting on 31st October would have been more harmful than a normal fight. 10% additional max morale doesn't mean 10% more morale. A month's tick is needed.

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Persia is mocking us. Luring us in with sweet gifts, just to crush our hopes and dreams.
A level 1 fort against an incompetent siege 1 general has been holding out for 271 days.

Disgraceful and frustrating.

Let's stop looking at it and retreat with our main force to Ar-Raqqa. Still looking for an opening to peace out Yemen. The longer a war goes the easier it gets, but we need to hurt them.

(cont.)
 
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Mamluks come in, immediately splitting their troops. We smell a small chance.

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They continue their advance and what do our eyes see? They are without a general! A rogue army, wild, uncontrolled... weak

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Relatively speaking. No malus, no general on their side, outflanking, more cannons and we still lose?
What is this wizardry. Burn the Mamlukian witches.
This will not end well.

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Fortuna has left us for another man. Disgustingly bad rolls allow Mamluks to reinforce in time. We haven't even broken their frontline yet and already have to flee?

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Their arriving Maneuver 6 general reminds our maneuver 6 general of the river we crossed. Higher maneuver cancels it, equal doesn't.
With our heads lowered in shame we run away and look around for an opening that doesn't requires us to accept the services of dirty mercenaries.

Did we consolidate our troops? but still, there were at least 800 soldiers per unit and we had so many advantages.
Lost a golden opportunity today. All odds were stacked against them.
A look at the map is needed, but we only manage an incredulous glance back to Adana.

Admittedly we also forgot our morale advisor, but this, this is just too much.



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We stand corrected. THIS is too much.

Call for peace, rebels sieging Timurid territory and still no success after 402 days.
It may be time to consolidate, loan, merc up and get an advisor to boost our troop's morale.

It surely is time for a break.


Mistakes have been made.
 
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What about condotierri?

Can not be asked for, only offered and nobody offers them to me.

Or do you mean I should offer my troops? That won't help since I'm not a war participant if I lend condottieri.
Don't want to help Afghanistan and the others to win faster, I want those cores back.
Afghanistan has cores there themselves, they won't give any to Timmies or Khorosan. Them winning means nothing other than a stronger nation with more allies now owns the cores.

Condottieri are a pure RP mechanic. Fun to do, but utterly useless. The Arumba special.
You're barely getting your maintenance back and get punished if you don't participate enough.

Opportunity costs are too high, your troops can do a lot of things ten times better than running around, influencing someone else's war.

We're also constantly at war ourselves and the plan is to stay at war for more than half the game. There's no time to send troops away, they're desperately needed at home.
Keep in mind that I am playing incredibly slow because I boxed myself in earlier and Mamluks had the alliance with Poland which I didn't cancel.
Usually there's even more AE to manage. No time for condottieri.

EDIT:

One more thing I haven't touched at all so far is Estates management.
The reason I haven't touched it yet is because I'm mediocre at it at best and from watching a few people's streams during the run I realized even high-level players like Marco Antonio are only decent at it while other high-level players like Atwix use the mechanic like it got introduced yesterday.
Mind you, both of these players are miles ahead of me in terms of overall skill.

In my opinion both of them suffer from "streamer's sickness", where you feel like you have to do something interesting instead of sitting back for a while, looking at ledgers, alliance nets, etc.

Estates management isn't interesting enough for viewers so maybe that's why they forego it almost completely.
It's tedious micro, very time intensive and even without streaming I often forget about it. A bit embarassing to write "and once again we revisit our Estates after having forgottten about them for 10 years", but seeing how nobody is using it effectively I may throw my 2 cents in at some point.

Could misplay it completely. Hard to get motivated to learn something when there's not even half a guide available telling you how useful it is.
Could end up with people telling me I have no idea what I'm doing.

Maybe I'll get to it at some point, but estates managment can take up a tenth of your run if you want to do it properly and I feel like you don't gain enough to warrant focusing on it.



Thanks for the comments so far :) and a special thank you to stnylan :)
Keeps me motivated to continue writing.
But be careful! The more interest people show the more I may go into boring details like ledgers, forcing other nations to declare wars they'll lose and maybe even Estates :D
 
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I mean improve releations with possible mamluks rivals to get a condotierri offer. This could turn the war. Overall I agree that this mechanics is highly inefficient.
 
I mean improve releations with possible mamluks rivals to get a condotierri offer. This could turn the war. Overall I agree that this mechanics is highly inefficient.

That's not even an option due to our location.
Best bet would be Tunis, I guess, but aside from them everyone close has lower tech than us.
It's really just Mamluks (and Yemen towards the end of the war, for some reason
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) who are keeping up in tech and most other nations love the punching bag and hate us.

Every condottieri offer we could get would just give free warscore to the enemy. Not gonna pay for that.
It's only useful to hire them when you're in Europe or if it's a really great offer.

I don't believe in paying for troops I don't get to keep either.
Have stopped using the option altogether a long time ago, but that is a style question, not a definite "they're worthless in every scenario" answer.
 
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Looks to be a bit of a sticky wicket.
 
Back on track. Still a bit cloudy in the head, a little bit distracted, but better than yesterday.

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Morale advisor is getting hired. 3 loans are taken, mercs are being recruited.
Feelings don't matter sometimes. Stick to your style, but not at all costs.
Playing without loans is a handycap and we don't need a handycap. This is barely the start of our war plans.

General gets transferred to the Arabian Peninsula and the march towards Qatif begins. Yemen's troops are still sieging. At least they're just as lucky as we are.

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Khorosan is mocking us :mad::mad::mad:
One more reason to play a bit more seriously.

Troops have moved into Qatif (flatland, no malus for them) and we cross fingers that Yemen's cannons are just as useful as ours.
Got way too focused on having more cannons at tech10. That's not an advantage, that's barely rough cuddling.

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434 days.
Four hundred and thirty four days.

A siege1 general against a level1 fort.
It's finally over.

Yemen's general has reduced shock damage received, but we got Infantry fire, a morale advantage and better tech.
Again, our lack of Cavalry shows. Really need to build 2 more mounted units. Maybe even 3.
We debase and hire a few more mercs.

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Khorosan and Timurids become the newest members of our family. Jemen is sent home packing. That should lower their war enthusiasm a bit.

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Despite heavy losses we're still #3 in the world. Cutting the Ottomans off worked of incredibly well.
We could guarantee Hungary, but 8/4 relations? We need at least a few dip points to start integrating.
Could still switch to Influence and kick Diplo out, but we need the additional diplomat more.
Hoping to get enough dip for 3 more ideas until annexation cost reduction is available is a bad idea. Dip points are scarce.

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Turns out those separatists are Khorosan's. We let them walk around for a while. Timurids can lose the core to Khorasan. We don't care, they're both our vassals.
Maybe it's time for a war against Transoxiania? Keep them busy so they can't unsiege those provinces, get a few for free?
Or Sistan, who has no allies. A good portion of their land is already occupied.

A total of 8000 troops is under their command, we have 5000 in the area. Both vassals are still disloyal so we'd have to merc in Qazvin and send them over. Not gonna do that.
It's too late anyways. We'll get whats left. No need to overextend, they can't join a coalition while they're at war anyways.

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Yea yea, shut up.
Consolidate troops, move troops towards Yemen, try to peace them out.

Our fort is being ignored by the way. Completely forgot that it's worthless and everyone can move past it. Gotta remember the scenario for future runs.
Mamlukian troops are being stopped at Ar-Raqqa as usual. Lots of maneuvering, barely any combat. Just how we like it.

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Five provinces have been occupied. A shameful display :oops:

Mamluks move in and we smash them.
Our morale advisor pushed us to 4.4 instead of 4.1, delaying him wasn't a mistake in itself, but we could've probably ended the fight in Adana if our head hadn't been in the skies.

The playing field is finally equal.

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We barricade and get rewarded. This war needs to end. Rebels start popping up again.

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We catch a few more troops and pause for a second to admire our generals.
No re-rolls involved, no estates general amongst them.
Events haven't been kind to us, increasing many Estate's influence by a ton. We had to revoke a few provinces, making them unhappy.

We never said we were good at managing them and bad RNG can't be managed anyways.

A quick overview

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Ajam has taken a bite out of Sistan, Afghanistan is still at war. Khorosan's separatists plague them, but they'll get cleaned up sadly.
Maybe Transoxiania forgets about them? Fingers crossed.
Troops move north because Yemen arrives. No need to waste resources when Najd's rebels are occupying Haasa's provinces.
Occupying a single non-fort province will suffice to kick them out. Play it calm, play it slow.
As long as their troops are south we are in no hurry to force anything. We don't want them to participate, they do not participate. Good enough for now.

I may go into maneuvering in general because I prefer it over traditional warfare most of the time, but for now I'll spare you those screens.
Need at least 30 to explain a single week :confused: not worth my time, not worth your time

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YES! That's exactly the reason why you never wage war on speed 3.
We catch a glimpse of Khorosan's army as they engage Afghanistan.
Time to make our move.

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Fronts are being pushed south. Mamluks try to be smart and move behind our lines.

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And they get sent home packing.
Our morale advisor is worth every ducat. A bit frustrating that we didn't hire him sooner (rookie mistake), but a run without loans after the initial three sounded appealing.
Better late than never.

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Biapas joins the coalition and our 6 maneuver general is being put to use. Mamluks get cleaned up.
Everything's better after a good night's rest.

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"and once again we revisit our Estates after having forgottten about them for 10 years", right? :D
They are in control of 0% autonomy provinces. Lots of them.
Granting a province only earns you half the loyalty taking one gets you. Relocating as many estates as possible into QQ's and Ajam's former provinces sounds like a plan.

Gazimukh enters the coalition, Hormuz leaves, Ottos declare on Bosnia.

Our advisors remind us that Bosnia is now an OPM and in a trade league.
Ottos may get themselves into a lot of trouble for a single province. Good.

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With Mamlukian soldiers suffering horrible losses we can push into Yemen again, who have now caught up in Tech. Don't want them to attack, don't want to attack them, but standing on a province also influences score a little. No need to actually occupy it.
After a month's tick they're out. White peace. The last white peace they're going to get.

Meanwhile in Sistan we're pursuing the goal of occupying as many provinces as possible.
No resources invested, only sieges. Who can say no to a free province or two?

Biapas leaves the coalition again and a few more minor Mamlukian stacks get wiped out.

Win the battle, win the war. It's one of the reasons a human can never lose a war against the AI. I refuse to accept that possibility, at least on normal difficulty.

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Poland declares on Crimea, but weren't they...

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... allied to the Ottomans.

That's good and scary at the same time.
Good because we're not interested in their lands. Scary because we do not contribute much to the Ottoman's alliance strength due to constant warfare.
The AI may come to the conclusion that we'd deny the CtA and jump them.
For now, they're only fighting Crimea thankfully.

Guaranteeing Hungary gets pushed back. We don't want the Ottoman Empire to fall before we have used them to their fullest extent.
If they want to take a bite out of Hungary later, we'll allow it.
Our future alliance currently includes only Muscovy, which neither formed Russia, nor started expanding into Kazan.
Admin tech 9? Hilarious. We're sitting at 10.

Ajam joined the coalition earlier. Leaves it again. Gazimukh leaves as well.
Coalitions are based on standing troops of the war leader + allies. If they're deemed to strong they won't form or even dissolve.
It'll pop up again soon enough. The Ottoman Empire is bound to feel some pain in that war.

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Afghanistan accepts peace and we could vassalize Sistan.

Sitting at 8/4 relations and trying to integrate Haaasa soon we decide against it. Most of their cores were overlapping with Khorasan's and Timurid's cores anyways.

Their capital is not available for us. We use the peacedeal to farm Prestige instead.

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5k troops occupied for 1 year, no combat, no forts sieged, only attrition from sieging provinces.
It cost us 362 soldiers. Mercs, to be concrete. In exchange we get one province for free, 13.2 prestige and remove a potential coalition partner.
Absolutely worth it. I'd take that trade any day.

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A lot of action north, barely any south. We finish another siege, wipe another stack and our troops take a break in Mecca.

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Still unsure how that event is supposed to make sense.
In niche cases you do pay increased merc costs, but losing 10 prestige and increasing local unrest in an area?

Keep in mind: This will only add unrest to provinces Hisn Kayfa does NOT own.

it's the area around Tabuk. Al Ula is part of it, but won't have increased unrest.
Yes please? Plunder more?
Can we defend asking our mercs to rape and murder more often? We should ask our morale advisor for moral advice
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Mamluks are chasing and catch one of our stacks. We immediately create a supply chain to keep CW at maximum while reinforcing morale.
Rolls are still not in our favor and where are they getting their morale from?
Can't be bothered to check. Discipline is also in their favor, but finally there's an appropriate amount of cav in the fight and it's tech10 cav. We went up to 4 units per stack and will dilute it afterwards.
Maybe not. We'll see if 4 cav units pay off.
We win the fight thanks to our supply chain. Higher losses than them, but at this point it doesn't matter anymore.

Our general is being rewarded with Infantry Combat Ability +10%

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A change in leadership! Hassan I Ayyubid is a zealot and will help conversion efforts, our heir has a strong dip value.
Couldn't have planned it better.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that he was close in age to his predecessor? 62 years old, giving us time to convert a few provinces at least before we get more dip. Beautiful.

In case you were wondering why higher losses didn't matter in our last fight: Check the icon below our messages.
They had nowhere to go. Fled south, we caught them, we'll wipe them.

They survive the first battle, get caught again aaaaand

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WIPED!

Payback time.

Time to incite Ajam to go to war against something.

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It was long in the making to be honest. They finally go in and since you can't join a coalition while at war it allows us to keep the region unstable and unable to conspire.

The Ottoman Empire embraces colonialism, we start carpet sieging the south and retreating units with fewer men than 500. Park them South of QQ and let them rest.

The council of Dundee takes place. Leagues are going to form soon.
We make a mental note to prepare for a war against the Ottoman Empire.

Poland and Crimea have only fought twice so far. Good. Keep them busy, but don't ruin either side.
We don't want Muscovy to jump the future PLC. At least not before they formed Russia.
Can't influence much though except for calling them into a nocb war and we do not have the wiggle room to squish something like that in.
AE is still an issue.

Carpet sieging is done. We let a few month's pass to get a ticking warscore, to increase unrest and devastation, retreat all troops to avoid combat and wait for them to start resieging to get the maximum warscore with minimum effort.

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Hussah! Hussah! Hussah!

Glory to Hisn Kayfa. Almost 100.000 men will never come home to their wives, but if you ever met Hisn Kayfa's women, it may be for the better.
We should start hiring them instead. Fierce warriors even outside the battlefield.

Taking Mecca alone does not grant a free missionary anymore. Need to control Medinah as well. Sucks, but you learn something new every day.

We wrap it up by handing over provinces to Haasa because all of them are their accepted culture. Reduces unrest and saves us a few rebels.
Only to remember that we do have core creation cost reduction, but no diplomatic annexation cost reduction.

Thankfully it's mostly dirt provinces, so we won't lose many MP over this mistake. A mistake nonetheless.
Planning for rebels got us distracted from the current status quo.

Ajam is still allied to Oman. We could take both at once.

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Our list of truces shows how most of the wars did go according to plan after all, except for Yemen.
We improve relations with them, keep other potential coalition members happy as well (thank god for that fourth diplomat) and have four years left before fighting QQ.

Could squeeze in another war. Original plan was at least 5 years between peace with Mamluks and war against QQ. Not too shabby consideriing how bad our opening was.
We took the last huge AE block Mamluks had left.
All other provinces are too far away to aggrevate anyone. From now on we can mindlessly send peacedeals without having to worry about anyone joining a coalition, except for the Ottoman Empire, who are still our ally and relations are high.

We have to declare on them as soon as they cancel our alliance even without the threat of them joining. Can't be forced harder than "do it or die".
Ottoman AE can be ignored, the rest is our vassal or out of reach. Lovely.

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Theodoro is getting cancelled.
They did not work as a lightning rod in this war, have no troops, are being supported by Poland (disloyal vassals don't fabricate on provinces of interest) and integrating them after they become loyal isn't appealing.

They have given us

- Free splendor
- Distraction for enemy troops
- Quite a lot of ducats over time
- a warning that Poland/Lithuania's strength is at a certain level

and have been a nice partner in general.

We kick them out of our family.

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And they immediately want back in!
Tempting. Especially now that their liberty desire from forced conversion is gone.
7/4 relations is enough though and we do not need a claim on Lithuania anymore. Ottos and future PLC are fighting their first war, maybe even a few cores will change owner.
They won't ally each other and continue fighting. The only purpose Theodoro could serve is not needed anymore.

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You will be missed.
No, seriously, they will be missed. It's a bit heartbreaking to see someone being abused for almost a century, just to watch as they get kicked aside.
We did the abusing and kicking, but that doesn't matter.

A single tear rolls down our cheeck and we send them away.


Okay, eyes on the price, what does the future hold for our nation.

- Truce with QQ is up in 4 years. Mandatory war. If they ever join a coalition they won't leave
- Oman is only allied to Ajam. Over 50% warscore, but less than 100%. No access though. Complicated.
- Observe the war between Ottomans and Poland
- Get rid of 3 loans and fix finances in general
- Estates *sigh*
- Integrate Haasa (already started)
- Observe Ajam against Fars. Both have cores we want.


We take a step back and a sigh of relief escapes us.
The war is over, we're back on track and the funniest part of any run is ahead of us.
Not sure if we can get there in the next session, but it'll be delightful :)

Hisn Kayfa is at peace.


For now
 
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Farewell Theodorou - we kinda got to know you, but now you are just taking up space. Just sayin'
 
Turns out studying while playing doesn't help you focus.

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When exactly did we pay off those loans? ahh, doesn't matter.
Forts get removed again except for the one east of Najd. No time to worry about uprisings when you're at the other end of your empire.

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Oman doesn't hate us and may get kicked out. If we have time to wait. Barely more than 3 years left until QQ has to be attacked.
Declaring on Oman doesn't work because Ajam will join in. They detest us, +121 reasons to join.

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Attacking Hormuz does look good on paper, but most of Fars and Hormuz is already occupied and we don't want to strengthen any nation in the region. They need to be of almost equal size and always weak in order to continue fighting amongst themselves.
Afghanistan has grown after taking Sistan. Couldn't make it in time, we'll fix that mistake later.

Remember: It's not about winning a war, it's about getting the most out of it with as little effort as possible.

Haasa will be annexed in 1543, Muscovy declares war on Denmark who are allied to Brabant. Interesting setup.

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...
That's not gonna last for long.
5 battles and -2 means Ottos have finally stopped sightseeing and started fighting. Fingers crossed that Poland can get a province or two from Crimea before peacing out.
Looks like Ottos are going to grow though. Guaranteeing Hungary is on the table again.

Why are we suffering attrition without war?

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Ajam. You killed our soldiers. I knew all of them by name.
Not their name, but I do give them names sometimes.

Set Oman as co-belligerent, check if Muscovy can be called in just to distract them from attacking Poland.
They decline and off we go!

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And off he goes!

Fight was already won, but still.
Ajam has a morale advantage (of course), but we bring the numbers.
Mental note to figure out why declaring war on them while they were sitting on my troops in my terriitory makes me the attacker.
That's not how it usually works, is it? Sometimes you get lost in all the details.

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This'll be a short one.

Where did the guys in Ahvaz come from? Noble rebels disappear from fog of war.
Why are noble rebels coming in from Fars? Why are... they're Haasa's rebels.

Took the long way around through Hormuz.
That's supposed to be impossible. Every nation can block the strait for rebels.
Annoying, but not harmful as long as we survive. 2,4k manpower lost at worst as long as we survive.
That's our weak stack though. Most of the units barely have 200 men.

Troops move into Ajam. We don't expect to fight.

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Our troops manage to escape, we completely wipe out Ajam's army, an Omani stack gets picked up shortly after.

Manpower still at 0 from our war against Mamluks, ducats are not coming in despite prosperous states because the land we conquered south is desert and dirt.

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Afghanistan can not be declared on yet. Their ally Transoxiania may be weak, but it's a lot of resources for a white peace. We really don't want their provinces unless they're cores.

The fort in Qom falls on the 31st of Jula 1532

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And we're out!
10k manpower in exchange for that peacedeal, nice.

Took us half a year. More than enough time until QQ can be attacked. Who needs manpower?
Oman wasn't vassalized. We need a bit of dip and they're not gonna bother our empire anytime soon.
Rebels aren't a problem anymore, alliances are being checked, the drill is well known by now.

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Great move, horrible timing.
We saw earlier how Aragon had 2 provinces in North Africa, one of them bordering Mamluks.
Could've used it a bit later. What will happen is the usual drill.

Despite being a nation of great explorers Castille still doesn't know how these 'transport' things work. Mamluks will move all their troops west, no combat will take place and in the end it's a white peace.
Worst case Aragon loses 2 provinces.
Yemen joins, but our relations are already high. They can't join a coalition.

In a worse setup we would've been delighted. Right now it's fun to watch, but neither helpful nor interesting.

So much peace... so many alliances... only 2 years left, can we really risk a Blitzkrieg?
We need to prevent a strong coalition from forming, a truce is needed.

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Let the party begin :D
A nation that has been threatened does get a negative modifier on future threats, other nations do not.
On top of that "relative worth of province" is based on the nation's size and relative strength of alliances will tip in our favor monthly, maybe even daily.
We're at peace and need to reinforce A LOT. They're at war and lose men.

Time to drill our armies.

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Colonialism is spreading in our lands, Bosnia has been peaced out. Nothing else has been taken.
Poland will die. Now it depends on how hard they'll get beaten.
If their troops get decimated without anyone unsieging Crimea they'll peace out and win provinces. Otherwise it'll be a white peace.
The Ottoman Empire will not grow substantially.
That is, unless Muscovy joins. Let's hope they won't.

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Never mind. They still haven't learned to go for war goals.

Ehhh....

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In our attempts to peace out quickly we overdid it. Wiping Ajam was a mistake because now Fars, who had lost the war earlier, was able to strike back and grow.
It happens.

Ajam allies Biapas. Biapas is sitting on less than 50% warscore and is one of the most outraged nations around us. As soon as our truce with Ajam is up they will get declared on asap.
Fewer nations, easier AE managment.
A mental note is made.

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Getting provinces through threaten war does cause more AE usually, but since all of those are our vassal's cores the relative increase or lack of relative decrease is neglectable.
Baluchistan loses a province and we get a truce.

Another Estate event and hopefully the end of a desastrous chain pushes all our Estate's loyalty below 40%, giving them provinces would push their influence above 80%
Time to pay back all luck we got during the opening, I guess.

We move it out of our view. If we can't see it, maybe it can't see us either?

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Almost exactly how it works.
Events can be left open. Once the time's up, the first option will be chosen by default.
Three months in total, if we're not mistaken.

The poor of Halab complain, but are they really?
Another event you can click away without wasting half a thought.
Your choices are to gain 10 prestige, lower local development cost by -15% and for good measure you get local tax modifier -60%. Both in only one province.
The alternative is to increase development cost in that province by 60%

The only situation in which you'd ever take the second choice if it hit exactly the province you're currently developing at the exact time you're developing it to spawn an institution.
Two huge "If"s.

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Poland gets a white peace because Ottos never unsieged Crimea and only sieged provinces they wanted to take for themselves. We won't complain.
Turks rival Austria. Now this might get hairy. Guarantee Hungary? Don't guarantee Hungary? Decisions, decisions.
Problem is, we're still extremely broke and during the past 100 years everyone has started hating Hungary.
If they ever get declared on it'll start a chain reaction and we'd have to decline the call, getting even more people in to jump them.
Since they'are alied to Austria it would break them as well since they only peace out one after the other. War exhaustion and military power only matter for a white peace. None of their neighbours will want that.

A fun little trick if you want to ruin someone. Not very useful here, we need them alive.
It's always a gamble, not doing anything is a guaranteed increase in dip. We'll take the dip and hope Ottomans are exhausted from their fight against Poland.
We'll call them in soon, just to keep them occupied.
If the chance arises.

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We continue threatening everyone and everything. All our vassals grow, even Mahra's name can finally be read on the map.
MP are being saved for now. We can't embrace yet.

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Poland allies Sweden which has finally broken off. Norway got integrated way earlier.
Livonian order is still alive thanks to their unusual alliance to Muscovy.

The whole region is a beautiful mess. Brandenburg blobbed out a bit and is undergoing de-blobification organised by its angry neighbours. Everyone and everything has taken missions they either can not fulfill or should not fulfill.

Threatening war has given us truces with almost all of Persia.
Especially important since annexing QQ won't be as easy as annexing Mamluks.
At least in regards to AE.

They're extremely close to all our enemies, old and new, and are Sunni.

Loans have been paid off, the Estates desaster won't fire because other modifiers run out 2 months before we reach 100% (which is why we left it open), Persia can neither attack nor form a coalition and we made sure QQ would be without allies.

Next up: QQ has 105% WS just to spite us. We will take as much as we can, just to see what happens.
AE juggling is more fun that way.
Persia needs to be eaten but everyone and their mothers is allied to each other.
It was safe to threaten war because we can't set anyone as co-belligerent anyways unless we want to fight India, Kazan or Transoxiania.
Manpower needs to be replenished. Only 18k missing after several years of peace or only minor warfare, down from 38k missing.
QQ won't cost much, soon we'll be back to full power.


The calm before the storm.
 
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Ah, who needs studying when there's nations to conquer.

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We start the session by declaring without calling in the Ottoman empire.
We may have Alzheimer's, but at least we don't have Alzheimer's
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What's the worst that could happen.

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QQ was drilling at the start of the war and get stackwiped immediately. Commence carpet sieging.

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Our heir has a hunting accident. We can not disinherit right now because standing troops and morale are both factors for any DoW.
Not sure if morale also factors in when forming a coalition or if it's only standing armies. "It would make sense" doesn't apply to EU4. You either know it or you don't.
We don't, so we won't risk it. We're in enough morale trouble anyways and our new heir is decent.

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Some more rebels. Mecca won't be affected thanks to our fort and we're prepared to take Sinjar.
Mecca is the only fort we have at the moment. Who prefers stone over gold? Not us!

We fabricate on Medinah to get the province for our missionary. We realize it's their capital. Can't demand those. Oh well.

Theodoro allied Gazimukh. We were never able to attack them. Kazan holds a protecting hand over them, but we could attack our former vassal.
Doesn't feel right, would help a lot though.

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The interesting part begins.
Technically it began when we started the game, but here's our first milestone.

QQ, Mamluks, Ajam, Najd, Hormuz, Sistan, Afghanistan and Baluchistan are trucelocked.
Leaves Biapas, Gazimukh, Transoxiania, Avaria, Fars and Crimea.
Five nations can join after we've just come out of a peaceful phase where AE should be low. From now on "a coalition can form any day" is the floor.
We will not play without the possibility of a coalition for a while, maybe even until the end of the game.

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No good reason to delay Colonialism any longer.
We take three loans, embrace it and go up to mil tech 11. Mil tech is calced in. It will help preventing coalitions from forming.


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We leave them with a single province and start calling them 'our cute little mole'.
Fars is getting threatened for Ahwaz. Haasa has all of its cores back.

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Troops move east again, we reduce inflation, finances are looking stable.
Vassal income is our saving grace and our government form is granting us +33% additional income from them.
8/4 relations as usual. Mahra is next to integrate after we're done.

Crimea can't join a coalition anymore. Relations are above 0. We continue fabricating on Najd. Maybe we can threaten a province away from them before our next war.
Would make them lose 1k units? Eh, every bit counts. Our diplomat would be idle otherwise.

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Diplomatic overview.

Royal marriages with our vassals get renewed. Always nice to have those.

There's a commotion in western lands.

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Ugh...

Austria, Florence and Siena join.

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3 years until Mamluks. We can beat them, we've just done it, but our plan was to have the Turks fight them while we take our first bite out of India.
Why India? We don't know where the campaign will lead us. Maybe we'll need it.
AE is constantly ticking down except if there isn't any, so why not cause a little uproar on a different continent, then go back to silence and... just kidding, we want to create coalitions over there as well.
Out the window with out plan, I guess.

hmpf

Our truce with Najd is up. They're allied to Mamluks who we have a truce with. Forget about them.

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A mission for diplomatic reputation is finished, we refuse to build a fleet, QQ has a truce for another 10 years.
We take 5 prestige and 25 dip points. We'll need them soon.
A stab hit event shooks us a bit and more rebels pop up. They're being dealt with swiftly.

Manpower is almost above 0. Only 9000 units missing.

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And it immediately fails.
Aragon loses one of their provinces, as expected. As soon as the war is over, Castille forms Spain.
Our mission was to improve with Castille, Castille is no more. Sad.
Could've needed those 25 points.

We're going the 'spray and pray' route. Massive dip costs for unjustified demands in exchange for early expansion. A very unusual playstyle and not the most effective if I may add, but the region feels almost like playing India and we have more fun with massive AE anyways.

No need to play bad on purpose, no need to take it too serious either. The style usually ends around 1600. More than enough time to prepare for a WC if anyone is in the mood for it and not much worse than the optimal path anyways.

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Yea, we're not scared of that anymore. Trust has been increased, we don't control anything they could get a claim on from missions. Hisn Kayfa is safe.
Ottomans are missing in the list. Muscovy declared on Great Horde.
Genius! That means they can't take Avaria and can not fully annex Crimea.
Removing Avaria would have taken away a coalition partner. Maybe it'll happen later on.
Great Horde is currently an OPM.

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We have lost our podium spot :(
Fighting against rebels has lowered manpower to -9500 again.
Age bonus -1 siege level to all blockaded forts is unlocked. Technically all inland forts are blockaded, giving us -1 against all enemy forts.
Intended? Not sure, but amazing nonetheless.

We repay our first loan and start looking around.

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Glad we didn't make it worse for them. Only 2 attackers so far. Poland may join in later on, but they just lost to Ottomans.
Italy will stay silent. We didn't prepare anything. Didn't even want this to happen.

Austria gets forced out of the war against Ottomans for war reps and cash, we check if we're in range to private Sevilla.
We aren't. No ships yet.

Avaria allies Sistan and England calls for a crusade against Ottomans.
A bit late, don't you think?

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Our Estates are disloyal, increasing unrest in controlled provinces by 5.
We tell the Amirs they're not welcome in a 0% autonomy province anymore and force rebels to appear.
Always happens by default. We wanted to take it from them anyways, now it's the preferred choice.
Wish there was a "pop rebels" button for everything instead of a chance based system. In this case there is.

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20th April, 1541. The Commonwealth has formed.

How do we compare to them?

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Ohhh, already sitting at the top. Nice. Hisn Kayfa #1!

Yemen is allied to Mamluks and Ajuuran. Maybe we can declare on them and set Mamluks as co-belligerent.
We move in position against Mamluks, decrease autonomy wherever it prevents an outbreak and check alliance nets again.

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Gotta admit, that was a lot faster than we expected. They took a huge chunk out of Hungary.
In hindsight we should have guaranteed them. Risk a full implosion to delay something like that.
Great timing though! They can now join our war against Mamluks and we can declare war somewhere else.

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Great Horde got fully annexed while their troops were sightseeing in our lands. Disgraceful behavior.
Truce with Mamluks is up, we finally have manpower.
Can't declare on them yet. The Ottoman Empire may be at peace and willing, but their troops are still lost in Austria and Hungary. It'll take time for them to arrive if we declare now.
Better wait until they're in their own country again.

More time to check ledgers, alliance nets, scoop around a bit, look at our current situation and

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GO INTO PANIC MODE!

74 years old, a 7 year old heir, no queen. Regency alert!!!
We've had minor mishaps so far, but a regency? 8 years without war? Declare immediately!!!

On whom?

Yemen is allied to Ajuuran and Mamluks. Mamluks are allied to Najd, Yemen and Funj, Ottoman Empire refuses to join in on Mamluks because of a bug.
Normally it would be an exploit, but right now it's working against us.

Yemen it is. With Mamluks as co-belligerent.

Fully annex Najd in the first two months, take out Mamluks, focus on Yemen. Sounds like a plan, doesn't it?

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Except Funj joins one month late and Najd still isn't in after two months.
Their alliance is still intact, they did not say no. Didn't know the AI could delay a CtA.

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They join at the last possible moment and get wiped immediately.

So far, so good.

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Half our army is north to kill the last stack of rebels that hasn't popped yet.
90% progress, 14% chance to increase, 1 year has passed. Can I get a "pop rebels" button please?
Mamluks come in from north, Yemen from south and Madinah is the only mountains province in the whole region. We haven't taken the fort yet.
We retreat, one of our stacks gets caught but can escape without being wiped.

Ottoman Empire still nowhere to see.

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Mamluks get showered in gifts, both from Naive Enthusiasts and nations hating us alike. 500 ducats in total, we'll take that in the peacedeal if anything is left.

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A battle in Taif is lost. We decide to play around with siege stati.
Fun fact: Did you know that neither of these two stacks is ever going to get attacked?
Credit where credit is due, the AI did improve a lot, but that kind of behavior can be seen even on Very Hard.
Try playing around with occupation, it's fun.

Coalitions calculate their target's standing forces and compare them to all standing forces of potential coalition members.
As mentioned earlier a potential coalition member is any eligible nation without a truce. They can be at war and will still get counted in despite not being able to join.

Well here comes the second part: They also count all enemy forces towards their own when deciding to form or attack.
Same rule goes for normal DoWs as well, but those have a few more modifiers. We may get to that later.

For now it seems like 60.000 enemy troops compared to our 62.000 sufficed. Not the biggest surprise, but it forces our hand.

We have to declare on someone.



Who will it be?
 
Oh sometimes I would very much like a "pop rebels" button.
 
Hey, I leave for two days and you conquer half the Middle East.:D
 
Our fort is being ignored by the way. Completely forgot that it's worthless and everyone can move past it. Gotta remember the scenario for future runs.

go without forts! who needs forts, except for rebels..right.

I may go into maneuvering in general because I prefer it over traditional warfare most of the time, but for now I'll spare you those screens.

boo! i want some brilliant manoeuvers!

Remember: It's not about winning a war, it's about getting the most out of it with as little effort as possible.

that is what manoeuvring is for.. granted ai is bad it. they usually get the least in a war with as much effort as possible.

Ah, who needs studying when there's nations to conquer.

go study dammit, you need a degree!

;)

Five nations can join after we've just come out of a peaceful phase where AE should be low. From now on "a coalition can form any day" is the floor.

I like your playstyle :p

No good reason to delay Colonialism any longer.
We take three loans, embrace it and go up to mil tech 11. Mil tech is calced in. It will help preventing coalitions from forming.

only if accumulated ae isn't really bi in eglible coaiition members..

We're going the 'spray and pray' route. Massive dip costs for unjustified demands in exchange for early expansion. A very unusual playstyle and not the most effective if I may add, but the region feels almost like playing India and we have more fun with massive AE anyways.

it's not effective indeed, but nothing as satisfactory as going "balls to the wall" and survive.
 
boo! i want some brilliant manoeuvers!


that is what manoeuvring is for.. granted ai is bad it. they usually get the least in a war with as much effort as possible.


only if accumulated ae isn't really bi in eglible coaiition members..

:D Thanks for the motivation
As for maneuvering, I will try VH after this run because normal has become boring quite frankly.
From what I've seen in your stream they do move a bit differently, but it looked easier than normal tbh. Their movement, not the game itself.
Very aggressive and obvious patterns. I thought they were smarter instead of just stronger. On the other hand, more troops means more combat.
I guess I can do it? Not at your stream's speed though.
Still don't know how you manage to play like that. I'd suicide half my troops and exit the game forever.

only if accumulated ae isn't really bi in eglible coaiition members..

I do not understand that comment, sorry :(
Coalition mechanics follow DoW rules in almost every sense. What's different about mil tech?

Oh sometimes I would very much like a "pop rebels" button.

I tried to learn using Estates for it, but it's so... weird
You won't get the -100 unrest from recent uprising modifier, but you can force them to advance at the speed you want them to.

Difficult to evaluate how useful it exactly is. Again, there are zero guides for Estates. Even what Siu-King wrote (or streamed? It's been a while) was barely scratching the surface and he's a very competent player. Interesting to watch. Wish I had more time to check out other players. Haven't even looked at my idol yet.

I'm getting distracted though. Let's go back to screaming at the monitor until they finally pop :D

Hey, I leave for two days and you conquer half the Middle East.:D

Sorry ^^ Updates will come in slower, I promise. I'm in the middle of failing two courses and I need to focus on failing them successfully :rolleyes:
From life in easy mode to studying and failing basic java courses. Sounds about right.

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Back to the game.
Slightly bigger update today, not sure if I can come in tomorrow.

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Baluchistan joins as well, we expected them to be the third one. Second one is in range of expectations, we follow the plan.
First thing that's difficult to understand, at least for your narrator: The order in which nations join.
Of course basic rules apply. Quick reminder in case someone missed it:

- They can form even if there aren't 4 eligible nations as long as they aren't eligible because they're at war.
Example: 5 nations above 50AE, all outraged, 2 trucelocked, combined strength suffices to form > no coalition
Truces run out, both nations are at war and can not join due to game rules, combined strength suffices > Coalition of 3

- DoW rules are being followed mostly. Your standing armies + all allies vs eligible coalition members + current enemies you are at war with.
They need ~100%-110% of your standing forces to form, but not to attack (remember to calc in morale [sure about that one] and mil tech [atwix made me doubt myself])
DoW itself is A LOT different.
If you know the future warleader (predetermined) you can even grab alliances and have them suicide into you. Got a screenshot somewhere of a 60k coalition army attacking into 340k troops.

- Troop movement has been changed, but you can see check ledgers monthly. Future warleader has stopped gaining professionalism = they're coming for you. A coalition DoW is never instant unless their troops massively outnumber you. Tedious, but helpful.

When do they join? In what order? Mostly done by feeling and experience. If someone knows the actual rules I'd be more than happy to learn.
Either way, this coalition can be dissolved immediately if we would restart.

Almost forgot to mention it: The AI reevaluates two things every single restart, coalitions and rivals.
There may be more, but they're not important.
If you want to dissolve a coalition, try restarting the game. No need to crash it (never savescum unless you got hit by a bug :mad:), a simple restart suffices.
This is acceptable behavior because, quite frankly, the mechanic itself is old. Nations can stay in a coalition forever even though they shouldn't
They're not being forced to dissolve it. We just ask them to think about it again. Because the game doesn't.

But we're getting offtopic. A coalition is forming, we don't want to waste our time with restarting so we don't, 2 forts in Yemen are at over 40% and we realize a macro mistake:

The AI will always focus on weaker nations and/or warleaders. Mostly weaker nations.
By sieging down a very accessible warleader who is now the weakest accessible nation we wasted our time. The Ottoman Empire would've done it for us.
They'll probably still run south just to turn around immediately after arriving.

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First fort is down.
Always remember to only use 3*fort level + 1 troops. Changes a bit later on, but at that point in the game you throw 80k stacks on them anyways. No need to dive into that.
+1k in case of a disease outbreak. You don't want to wait until your troops are reinforced.

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We get an exceptional year, Mamluks and allies move south towards us. We check their travel time.
One more siege tick is possible. After that we'll have to run north through Yabrin.
We could fight, but manpower is scarce and this is only a single war. We want to start more.
As soon as the Ottoman Empire is in position.

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Biapas joins the coalition for the fourth time. Or was it the fifth? Annoying little buggers.
We're delaying mil tech 12. Supply limit is nice, tactics are amazing, but we're going to maneuver until 1544. Not needed yet.
Especially since eastern foes are lagging behind by 1 tech and it's mil tech10. One of the worst mil techs. We'd even argue THE worst.
Mil points are getting invested in barrages north, our troops increase the chance of a successful siege to 71%.
This is something you can only do in normal by the way.

AI got improved in many ways, one amongst them is understanding terrain. Since we're on normal we can play around with siege stati more. They will unsiege before attacking us.

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Success!
And completely locked in.
Yemen stopped sieging San'a, meaning Mamluks will move in. We wait until their movement is locked to move north and wipe their allies' minor stacks.

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#

The perfect situation. Nothing better to get here. Oman can be vassalized for cores, Biapas needs to be fully annexed anyways, Transoxiania would get white peaced.
Truce until March 1543. We hesitate, but make a mental note.

Troops are still sitting in Kirkuk because rebels refuse to pop. Diplomats are idle and Haasa's annexation is about to get stooped because they're under siege.

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Maybe Fars instead? Both their allies are a lot easier to siege down and they have more cores.
It's March 1543, Ajam will run out soon, Fars next month.

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10,8% chance at 90% progress for... a year? Two?
Most of the time I would thank the gods for this gift, but right now it's more than annoying.

Hungary is still alive somehow, we wonder why.

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Good? Bad?
They're not eating Hungary, but does it still matter?
Commonwealth isn't jumping in. Difficult situation to evaluate. Do we want them to join or not?
We can't influence it anyways and unmark Hungary as a nation of interest as well as others in the region.

Can't shake off the feeling that we're missing something.

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Our ruler! Despite reaching the ripe age of 75 he's still very much able to leade our nation. As a Zealot he's a valuable asset.
We remember that his death would mean a regency and prevent us from declaring war.
Not planned at all, but a welcome sight. Sometimes the game is good to you. Cherish those moments :)

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Austria has peaced out against Bohemia a while ago. We quickly check our GP status to find ourselves still sitting at #1.
Ottoman Empire almost caught us. We need to get a few hundred development advantage.
No special reason. It just looks nice to be that far ahead of them while starting as an OPM without ever being at war with the Turks :cool:


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The tiny island of Hadramut has quite a few cores. Are they even supposed to be on that island?
Aren't they... we're confused.
Two of these cores belong to our vassal Madhra and we want to grab a landbridge toward them. Hadramut can be ignored.

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This will require... coordination

Najds hasn't even been peaced out yet. We want to delay potential coalition members. Yemen will be last. Might get more interesting than expected.

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Truce ends on the 20th of April. Our ruler managed to avoid the grim reaper's touch.
Threaten war can not be used while at war. We can not get any cheap truce timers. It's time to attack.

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Autonomy in Kirkuk got increased, all three enemies are at tech10, arguable one of the worst techs.
We want to wait until January, 1444 before we grab tech11.
That is, if we can avoid combat until then.
Can be picked up if necessary. Tactics, unlike max morale boni, can be felt immediately.

A total of 120.000 troops are now fighting our 48.000.
Maybe it's time for a few more mercs. We can afford it.
Still aiming for as few loans as possible. Under normal circumstances you would've merced earlier.

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The fort is down and Najd is ready to get peaced out.
AE with current potential coalition members is increased, but no new nations are being added.
A bit surprising how they're worth 9AE to Baluchistan. That's 3 years worth of ticks.
We miss the fact that no new nations would be added and delay the peacedeal for no reason :rolleyes:

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Diplomatic overview. Slowly getting closer to the truly fun part. Already enjoying ourselves, but we can push harder.
Dimashq falls and Mamluks would accept a peace deal. We wait.


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Mamluks try to siege our lands, we click shift and make a slingshot.

Khorosan't fort into Mamluks back to the fort.
The fight in Koharasan will be won, Mamluks will get scared, we'll win another fight on the fort, Mamluks will come back, we deter them again.
Not sure what to do afterwards, but we don't need to worry about our 20k stack for now.
Fars is being carpet sieged first despite being the warleader because we want Timurid rebels to spawn. Fingers crossed.

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Do we even need to read the alternative?

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Fars is getting stackwiped. 2 month's ticks until we reach Mamluks. We upgrade our Infantry unit types to Musketeers.
Upgrading units sets their morale to Minimum, but 2 ticks should suffice. Higher tech, better general, outflanking.

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Ever get this feeling where you know it's nothing but bias but refuse to accept it?
They're obviously savescumming. Don't tell me otherwise.

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The only difference to our current government is +10% production efficiency vs our +33% income from vassals.
Thank you very much, but we will not reform for now :p

Our truce with Sistan is up. Avaria is their ally. We need to declare next month.

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An... interesting trait.
Combat traits are always preferred, but siege ability can be great as well.
Not on a siege1 general. We have siege3.

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Back again! Forts like that one are like honey for flies. Or forts for flies. Our enemies are flies and we're swatting them is what I'm saying.

Fars is going into last resort mode.

Nations have several modes during warfare. Surrender mode is very rare. Most of the time they will switch into last resort mode sooner or later.
Check provinces regularly. You can recognize building patterns extremely fast. They're obvious.
Why do we need to understand those patterns? To snipe 1k stacks for free warscore.
Their armies do not understand this by the way. As long as they have not reached their rally point they will treat them as if they were nonexistant.
On every difficulty.

1k snipes are not very effective in this case, but fun nonetheless.
Too bad you can't force them to set your troops as their rally point anymore. Ahhh, memories.

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Najd is out. Took us long enough to understand how much of a non-threat a peace with them was.
+1 missionary and +0.5 prestige per year for controlling both holy sites.
Triggered modifiers can be seen when clicking the second button from the right below your minimap.
Adding it because a surprising amount of people never heard of it. I guess it's not the most obvious place to look at.

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Rebels still react to standing forces. We could have kept them in Mogostan, but move our troops north.
Can't think of everything and it's only 6k. We'll survive.

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Third army moving in to destroy another stack and of course they win with 14%. Meanwhile we're sitting at 57% again.
It's bias, it's bias, it's still unfair :(

(cont.)
 
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71% after 444 days.
*sigh*
A minor skirmish breaks out north. We can not influence troop movement in Egypt. This will not end well.

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If you know how to snipe rally points you'll always want to have 11k standing around somewhere if you can afford it. Couldn't do it this time and we get punished.
Ottos abandon the siege.

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OPM Astrakhan? If only we could offer our services to Crimea.
Haasa is now at 98%, but our Peacedeal with Najd sent our dip points into negatives.
Huge oversight.

Sidenote: Crimea wants their province, they're an OPM, we can not attack them, they're a potential coalition member.
One of the rare cases where condottieri are useful.
Always keep all your options on the table. Almost every mechanic in the game is useful at least once.

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General overview. If only the Ottoman Empire had finished their siege, we could've peaced out of both wars and started a different one.
Iqta policy for -5% Coring Cost reduction grants us 9600 manpower thanks to our vassal's total development.
Thank you very much.

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We completely overrun them. Superiority is a nice thing.
Since we can't peace out Mamluks there's no motivation to peace out Fars. Get the most out of it while you can.

Funj got peaced out (White peace) and Warsangali jumps Ajuuran. They'll accept a white peace soon.

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Mamluks go for it one last time, but to no avail.

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-4k for us, -15k for them and therefor indirectly their coalition forces.
It dissolves almost immediately. Won't last for long.

Nothing interesting happens in 1545 aside from the battle of Ghazzah. We finish sieging down Afghanistan.

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99,1%? We messed up again :(
This'll cost us ~60 dip points. They continue occupying a relationship slot :(


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Ajuuran drops out. Is it time to attack Ajam?

How is our leader still alive?

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Beautiful map. We can't stop admiring it.
Portugal confined to its original provinces went on to colonize, Spain formed, England and France at a stalemate, Ottos barely expanded into Europe.
A strong Commonwealth, a weak Muscovy even India looks nice and fragmented.
Is that Tibet?
First time ever! At least for us.
We send them an insult out of love.
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We give Haasa two provinces because we're not going to integrate them anytime soon, repeating our mistake from last time.
One fewer rebel stack at the cost of Monarch points
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Starting to look scary. Maybe we should try something else.


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That's better. Can't fully annex them anyways and got them below 100% warscore.
Mahra may finally become useful.

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A few month later Fars goes down as well.
Can't get much out of Hormuz. No need to drag it out.
6.2 AE for 9 provinces, is there anything better than core return for conquest? Almost feels like cheating.

At long last, our nation is at peace.
We're getting bored immediately.

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You're not even part of the coalition.
Just because you CAN join doesn't mean you did.

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There's still too much gray on the map.
The achievement is asking us to paint the map in blue and red, doesn't it? Maybe we're confusing something here.

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Sis- dammit, we wanted to DoW Sistan. Completely forgot.

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Ottos refuse to attack Ajam, but they would join against Sistan. Makes sense.
Kazan sounds like a waste of time.

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We get rid of a loan and start looking around.

Our vassals are loyal, manpower increased by 20k during our wars, if it wasn't for the coalition we'd be in heaven right now.
This is going too well. We need to do something, quick.

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So much power, what to do, what to do.

Sistan does sound nice, but we can't take their core back since it's their capital. We'd need to annex it, then hand it over to our vassals.
Need to be at peace to grant provinces.
War against the coalition, a minor war on the side?
Ottoman Empire needs to be called in in any case. Can't allow them to take a bite out of Austria. Way too risky.
Muscovy has to help us against the Ottoman Empire soon. We're almost done with the Arabian Peninsula.
Three more wars in total, integrate Haasa, grab Ajam's unlawful territory.

AJAM! You're still not in the coalition, right?
Okay, we got our war. Now we need one more for the Ottoman Empire to fight.
Preferably a coalition member.

Still need to find a way for Muscovy to grow.

We may know someone whose clay is available.

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Hallooooo nurse! Bring in the dancing lobsters! Oh how the turntables.
(noboy will get that, stop making jokes)

Paid a lot of dip points over past decades to get favors with Muscovy. Time to call them in.

Next up:
Dissolving a coalition by declaring war on it.
Give back my heart cores.
Integrating so-called shithole countries to enrichen our culture, increase income, improve trade and enhance our quality of life. Not so shitty after all.
AE is just a number
Crimea river
 
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Kazan - very tempting :)
 
Don't apologize for being quick to updating.:D
 
got to love truce cycling the entire muslim world.