RYUKYU 1.9 three mountains one tag AAR no exploits

[atwix]

Time for something else entirely.

Personal union mechanic!

Muscovy was in a coalition war with me before, remember. Muscovy is really weak military wise after I bashed them in that coalition war. Other nations declared too. Muscovy is no longer outraged, but threatened attitude.

My -3 to diplomatic reputation due to integrating vassal expired. Muscovy has tiny army, since they just got out of being occupied 60%.

....and guess what?

I can RM Muscovy now with maybe 60 positive malus, and -58 against so to speak. Muscovy has *one* RM partner (Georgia), and a 40+ heirless king. I did a royal marriage with Muscovy; I maybe had a window of a few months to do it, before Muscovy produced troops again (and a fleet). If Muscovy got a big army again, I likely would have lost the chance to do a RM with them... Because the malus increases if the target nation has big army.

As you can see, Georgia would have gotten Muscovy as minor PU subject when Muscovite ruler died, and Austria would contest it. We can NOT tolerate that

So, I did royal marriage with them while they were weak and threatened by me, and the succession status changed from Georgia versus Austria to Ryukyu versus Austria.

I put that 'trick' in PU guide:

It is possible to get a RM with a country that has -200 opinion of you and threatened status (hostile and outraged status give malus making RM impossible!) due them wanting the provinces you conquered from them earlier. It doesn't take this into account. With high enough diplo rep, a diplo rep advisor and some luck you might just pull a RM off with a non-outraged/hostile -200 opinion neighbour of same religion. If you grow very big, you can even RM-200 opinion heretic countries that are reasonably far away from your nearest province.

I was counting on Muscovy declaring reconquest war pretty soon against its former agressors, and they did. The succession status changed then from succession war to “a noble of the von Habsburg dynasty ascends to the throne”. If the old Rurikovich king dies heirless now during these wars, I’ll be waiting to start force PU war immediately… I just hoped Muscovy would be entangled in reconquest wars until they defeated their former agressors. That’s risky, but you *have* to take risks in PU mechanic. The worst thing that can happen, is Austria that declares on me in a succession war over Muscovy. And yes, they can do that, even when they are ally, even when they are fighting war with you (they drop out of first war then and start a nother AGAINST you) and even when you got +200 relations and high trust with them…

Err right. Are you still with me? Gotta love complicated PU mechanic huh



In other news: Otomo ate almost entire Japan

I have simply never seen a nation annexing the original Japan… Nice work, Otomo! Japan just had a province in the north left… occupied by rebels.



The next month, the rebels there enforced demands, and Japan vanished for a day. Then…. This happened

Otomo formed Japan… again. And.. Japan is catholic! We can do royal marriage and alliance.. But that has to wait.



Austria integrated Pomerania. Austria now has ports and cores inside the Baltic Sea area. Don't look at me, nothing to do with it

And they are becoming friends with Poland, Riga, Lithuania and Polotsk. Diplomacy can be as OP as expanding militarly, rest assured



After a breather of 2-3 years, its time to attack France again. Our supply of baguettes was low

Tuscany didn’t join in because they were at war with Venice, who is at war with France aswell over Corsica. Pity. I wanted to feed Austria a corridor all the way to Sicily… That has to wait. Ulm did join. And Scotland. I made both co-belligerent.

I placed some 1k merc stacks on top of Austrian stacks in the Alpes, and they attached immediately after the DOW.



I’ll demonstrate the “use 1k stacks to prevent a nation from routing far away” trick again. I kinda hope it gets patched, since its way too powerful. Its not really an exploit in my book; the routing mechanic was designed to work this way. I just use a flaw in that design to my advantage.

France attacked a stray stack in Austria, and I moved all other stacks of Austria towards that province. Meanwhile, I used my own troops to spread across France from the South to loot, stop troop production, ….and to eliminate ALL possible routing paths for France after that battle is over



A glance at the disputed succession window learned me England has disputed succession. Wait what?

They had young heir in regency before.. Seems the heir died now, of natural causes, in his twenties. I didn’t see an “heir dead” event in England. Now this is promising

England has an old heirless king now. BUT I asked them to join the war versus France. ARGH

I got to hope England stays heirless until this war ends. Since their king is old, I got good shot at it. Even IF England (and Muscovy too, for that matter, they are heirless too remember) gets a dynastic event that gives them heir, then the heir is usually weak claim. And you can still do force PU war on a same dynasty nation that has weak claim heir.

We can’t do anything but sit and wait… For now.

Meanwhile, Portugal is making short work of the French fleet. Blubblub France.



I reinforced the battle against France with more and more troops, and France is losing. Meanwhile, I positioned my troops in France to await the end of the battle. I stopped troop production in France by shuffling 1k stacks around.

Important tip: If you hover over the smith icon in a province, you can see WHEN that province will finish its troop production. In case of mercs being built there, this can be quite quick! So if you attempt to repeat this trick, WATCH TROOP PRODUCTION TIMERS and act accordingly to stop it.



The first battle versus France ended, and France got routed…. To the next province. Louis XV de Valois saw his *entire* non-overseas army ob-li-te-ra-ted

France defeated within 4 months. New record!



A few months later, France is being FULLY sieged. This is getting too easy. Yawn



I guess we open another front then. Yue declared on Ning a while back, with the result that neither of them could join a coalition versus me as long as that war is ongoing. Using the opportunity, I asked military access from Ning, and declared on Yue the day after. I led my main Asian army (Ryukyan OP troops versus non westernised low military tech/low military tactic troops ) to attack the main army of Yue. They got bled BAD so far, they have no manpower, and even after growing considerably (thanks to integrating Ming) they are a paper tiger.



The fight wasn’t even a fight. The difference in military tactics and unit pips is SO big now that I win each fight with less then 1-2k manpower loss. I attacked Qi (they joined in) and occupied them. I intend to just occupy stuff I got my eye on, and let the participants of the other war kill off Yue. That worked nicely.



A year later, Yue and Qi are being sieged completely.. I intend to do 100% peace deal, so the war dragged on.



England is sieging and fighting Scotland. I meddled in the long run, and helped sieging Scotland up in their home turf AND in the colonial nation Nova Scotia. France has two colonial nations too in North America; SWEDEN ferried troops there without me even noticing it. Nice job, Sweden

In the end, all the colonial holdings from France and Scotland got occupied aswell.



Time for another front. I attacked Lithuania, and Poland joined in.

Both Poland and Lithuania are allied to Austria. But since Austria is in a war with me on the same side, both nations are relatively easy pickings now. Austria can’t help them. I didn’t make Poland co-belligerent, since they have a load of allies in the HRE. I got ages left to deal with Poland. God forbid, Austria might diplo vassalise them in the long run

I directed Spanish and Portugal stacks eastwards, and caught the main Poland army near Bulgaria. See that stack in Bohemia? I led it north to Danzig.



That stack would wipe the entire Polish army after they routed all the way north there. I led the stack in Bulgaria towards Lithuania and sieged the capital. The idea is to give Lithuania -50 warscore FAST here. If Austria would do separate peace (they won’t, but let’s assume) then they won’t join the Lithuanian war anymore. I think (not sure, feedback appreciated) in this situation Austria would never join the Lithuanian war ONCE Lithuania is losing badly (aka -50+% warscore).
Not sure on the exact trigger number. But it does work this way, pretty sure of that.

On a sidenote: Ulm is being sieged also.



Ulm gave up, and agreed to become a part of Austria.

Austria fed and happy.

I just wished Tuscany had joined in.. I would have fed Austria a corridor all the way up to Sicily.




This is the peace deal I did with Yue. Qi just paid me all their gold and reparations. Qi can wait. I made this weird corridor from Nanjing to the coast, to split Yue in many pieces. This, because WU declared on Yue aswell. So I took a few coastal provinces that are NOT cores of WU. After this peace deal, I gained holy war cb on Ning and WU again.

Lan Xang got fed exactly 100% overextension.

Lan Xang fed and happy.



Lithuania and Poland gave in quickly aswell.. Time for some more peace deals



Poland gave Sweden a claim, and Crimea got one province. I annulled alliance of Poland with Friesland, as I had no intention to start a fight in northwest HRE anytime soon…



Bulgaria integrated. This is a diplomatic snapshot of Europe

Muscovy is purple because I have royal marriage with them.

In the long run, I want to attack Mecklenburg and Holstein to create a corridor from Sweden to Austria.



I fed Sweden a huge part of Lithuania, worth 92% overextension.

Sweden fed and happy.

Polotsk declared on Lithuania , and its Possible they eat Lithuania entirely. Since Lithuania was 2/3 occupied after this peace deal, Lithuania couldn’t call in Austria for defense, yet again.



Muscovy took revenge on the former agressors. Relentlessly. Sibir and its vassals were first victim.



Golden horde was the second Victim. They got reduced to 3 provinces, and Muscovy took all their cores back.



This is the peace deal I did with Scotland. Scotland got reduced to OPM inside England, and lost a great deal of their colonial holdings in Canada and Middle America. I let them keep the Bahamas and a colony in Gold coast in Africa.

I wouldn’t be surprised now if Scotland actually moved its capital to another continent now, and abandoned original Scottish territory entirely. I have seen them do that in my 1.7 Savoy Run. They placed capital in Gold coast then. It seems Scotland is hardcoded to colonize Gold coast!

England got all Scottish territory except their capital.

England fed and happy.



I had to wait a year after, to finish coring the Yue provinces I took. Can’t overfeed myself here…

Thirteen colonies got fed with provinces from French Canada and Nova Scotia (before) and one province from Floride (french colonial nation around Chesapeake bay).

Thirteen colonies fed and happy.

I took four French provinces for myself: Poitou, Limousin, Bourbon and Béarn.

Ryukyu fed and happy.. because they found a few caches of baguettes!



On popular demand, I end with a diplomatic scope of the world around 1650. Muscovy formed Russia after ending the Golden Horde war.

First thing next chapter will be force PU war on England (nope, the old bugger didn’t get an heir yet), and hopefully a force PU war on Russia. IF I get those two, I wouldn’t be afraid to do a force PU war against Austria if the opportunity arises. And if all that works out, I’ll be snowballin’ forever after.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 

[1nf3ct3d]

Im pretty sure its 25 % before allies wont join anymore. At least thats how it was 1.9
Btw u gonna finish with HRE? i guess not right?

 

[atwix]

Im pretty sure its 25 % before allies wont join anymore. At least thats how it was 1.9
Btw u gonna finish with HRE? i guess not right?

Hm 25%? Isn't that bit low? If someone can confirm it, i'll edit it. And no, I formed greyskin once in my Savoy--->Italy--->HRE 1.7 one tag; I won't do it again. Doing it in this run would feel like sacrilege. Even IF I manage to revoke privilegia, i will integrate all HRE states manually. We'll see.

 

[misterbean]

That diplomacy shot of Europe

 

[Mkoll13]

The story of a dynasty (plus vassals and subjects) from some islands in East Asian conquering Europe by out Europeaning the Europeans

 

[atwix]

The story of a dynasty (plus vassals and subjects) from some islands in East Asian conquering Europe by out Europeaning the Europeans

trust me, it will get better still Russia king just died.

But yeah, sometimes i kinda feel akward; it feels weird to use PU mechanic as nation originating from East Asia.

Thats like catholic Japan that would get PU over Spain, England and Portugal. In theory its possible it happens without player interference. Heck, catholic japan might be elected emperor if HRE gets bashed enough...

Then again, even in patch 1.11 (and 1.12) it will be possible to flip catholic as Ryukyu and do PU game in Europe.

With the new exploration mechanic, you will have less time to do it, since you will only arrive in Europe in the first half of 16th century (or so).

 

[1nf3ct3d]

Somehwere u said something about a popup u get if an heir of another country dies. Where can i activate that option? I dont see it anywhere in my message options.

 

[atwix]

Somehwere u said something about a popup u get if an heir of another country dies. Where can i activate that option? I dont see it anywhere in my message options.

I mean the events that kill heirs. You can activate popup and pause for all events interesting countries get. IF an event happens that kills an heir in a country you are interested in, you will see it immediatly, and you can look if they got new heir right after.

Heirs can die by natural causes aswell; i periodically check the "disputed succession" icon tof left to see what nations are in disputed succession (aka weak claim heir or no heir). Its how I saw that England was heirless, in last chapter.

There is a nice "how to" in the Pu guide that I link in signature on how to set message settings right for PU game.

 

[Mkoll13]

Perhaps you can justify your ability to effect the fate of such games of thrones as the results of an insanely effective intelligence apparatus. The Europeans didn't have ninjas, after all :ninja:

Edit: Damn, the really good ninjas were from Iga province, now under Otomo/Japan . Perhaps Ryukyu would realistically be able to hire a few to train some Europeans in their ways. A relatively small number of well trained and placed agents around Europe to run intelligence cells would be quite useful.

 

[misterbean]

I shudder to think what people like the Borgias would have done with Ninja in their employ.

 

[Mkoll13]

It would be like having multiple Micalettos, but they all know ninjitsu

 

[misterbean]

It would be like having multiple Micalettos, but they all know ninjitsu

I googled the name, but came up empty. Who are they?

 

[Mkoll13]

A Borgia assassin of some infamy who I'm somewhat certain they didn't just make up for that Borgias show on Showtime. In a Polity book I read there was a ship/AI called Micaletto's Dagger that mention's its namesake as a Borgia assassin and I'm trusting/hoping that the author didn't use that show as his source :laugh:

Edit: Found Micaletto Corella on wikipedia, he was Cesare Borgia's buddy and an infantry captain and not really an assassin at all. Although he did strangle a couple of the Borgia's political opponents (after they had been arrested and imprisoned. He was more like their Illyn Payne)

That's what I get for believing Showtime, I suppose :wacko:

 

[atwix]

Ninjas to force luck in game of thrones? That sounds like fun. But assinating heirless kings or young heirs of old kings is done in another paradox game, right?

I wonder what will happen if I invade Japan, now that its formed by OTOMO!!! An army of 40k ninjas?

Maybe I should marry Japan and hire them.

On a more serious note: I intend to RM and ally Japan once I integrated the first subjects.

Like Russia, they are incredible easy to get into a PU, since they have almost NO viable RM partners (and thus low heir spawn chance). Last Time in Foix run Japan had 50+ heirless king at some point.

Needless to say, Japan is interesting nation now in my Ryukyu game, and I'm watching their succession

 

[atwix]

I played eu4 for 1000+ hours easily, and today something happened I still can't believe. It happened while I was watching rebels around Black sea, after lowering autonomy there. My mouth literally fell open and I watched the image on my trusted sony gdm-fw900 CRT for 30 secs flat thinking "What the..."

The next chapter will be posted it on monday.

 

[birincikalite]

++ nice chapter

 

[atwix]

Chapter 9: Three in a row times two




Remember last chapter? England had no heir. The old bugger didn’t ‘create’ an heir yet, so time for a (logical) force PU war on England.

England isn’t crappy anymore, like they were in the period when they had that 100+k rebel stack hampering them for decades

BUT: England came to the defense of Norway when Sweden attacked them, right before I did force PU war on Sweden. Ever since then, a 20+k stack of England has been trapped and black flagged in Danish territory (you can see it there, west of the Kattegat)

Result? England has only 30k troops in England itself. I really do NOT get why England never ever builds a load of transports IF they need a transport fleet. That black flagged 20k stacks has been there for AGES

See that fleet battle ne of the Scottish Highlands? I waited till the trade fleet of Austria was in same sea tile as main English fleet, and then declared the war. The English navy was trapped in battle, and couldn’t stop an invasion. I need more transports! I can only ferry in 20k troops at once… Guess we will play hide and seek with that 30k english stack there till reinforcements arrive.

Bohemia and Brandenburg were all flagged to be sieged by Austria in the province windows of those nations, and I set all mainland Norwegian provinces to be sieged by Sweden.

The real battle is in England itself, I just let Austria and Sweden do their thing. I was wondering if Spain and Portugal would ferry troops in. Nope, they didn’t. If there is something that REALLY gets on my nerves during this campaign, its the erratical naval AI. I have seen Spain sending their entire army at some point into Scotland, and this time they don’t do jack ****.

Sigh

I just made 20k mercs and decided to invade England all by myself. I needed a challenge!



I laughed when I saw this

Nothing can stop Austria now inside HRE. But then I shuddered at the thought I have to take Austria on at some point if I don’t get succession war chance over them

Also, Norway had 8k troops versus almost 40k Swedish troops. I never looked at Europe again, this front can be handled by the AI.



Cornwall is part of this war too. They had rebels, and England made the weird choice of attacking the rebels… Even better, they actually *assaulted* the fort. Errr, right

Time for a bold move, lets ATTACK them while they have low morale

I needed to, as I was about to land more troops in Southern England. Can’t have that stack interfering…

I managed to win and rout the stack to Scotland. That gave me a breather period of a couple months to land more invasion troops



The English fleet didn’t quite like that idea. They moved south between Ireland and England, and attacked a small fleet there. That battle dragged on long enough for Spain and Portugal to send their trade fleets in. Trade fleet won by sheer numbers… Blubblub England



I landed 20k army of mercs, started siege on London, and went north. Ryukyu and England started a game of rout and seek, that went on for months.. Losses were considerable for Ryukyu.

Important tip: I always consolidated troops after splitting army in 10, so I don't delete a single merc regiment by accident. The result is a load of merc regiments with 100-200 men in it. I let those siege somewhere while they fill up. If they fill up, I split the stack again in many pieces, consolidated and sent the full merc regiments back to the front.

I kept on battering them, while making new merc stacks (in France, and later on in occupied England provines). England had no fleet anymore, so I landed more and more invasion troops in South England or wherever they were needed. In the end, the English became demoralized enough to be stackwiped. I scattered the worn out merc army across all England, and put an army on each English province.



A quick glance at the European front. Most provinces are occupied or sieged now. Poland actually attacked Lithuania. They had a mission to “defend Lithuania” and it seems defending Lithuania means attacking them to defend them versus other nations with aggressive thoughts

You can see I started sieging England from the south to the north. The idea was to occupy England slowly, and to move sieging stacks north as occupations finished. England never made a move.

I guess that black flagged army in Denmark prevented them from making new troops (black flagged troops still need army maintenance). If I was the AI, I would have ditched that black flagged army and made a full merc army in Ireland. But, since AI is dumb, it didn’t. England front secured



London fell relatively quickly for a level 3 fort. Time to start another front..



After studying alliance patterns in Asia, I figured the time was right to attack Oirat. They were involved in a war versus Kazan, Sibir and Uzbek and had their hands full.

That enabled me to focus on their allies first, after declaring holy war on Oirat. I had been looking for a chance to attack Shan for decades… I invaded and slaughtered them, split my army and occupied them, and sent the rest to Ning. I assigned the provinces of Ning to be sieged by vassals, and guess what, the AI promptly listened

I don’t know if this is a bug or not, but IF you assign provinces to be sieged while fighting a battle somewhere, the subjects immediately listen. Tried it in Swedish force PU war and Stockholm (Portugal obeyed immediately) and now Lan Xang invaded Ning on their own immediately.. Yeah, that’s Korea there aswell. Korea landed troops by Sea



Shan got overrun and fed to Pegu. Not that Pegu deserved it, their armies have the “frozen” bug for more then a decade now. This bug happens (I think) if AI assigns an army to be moved by transports, and then their transports being sunk. The result is that the army waits for transport indefinatly, without budging. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t budge that Pegu stack in their capital. This bug is also the reason why the English stack waited in Denmark indefinatly for transport. Pretty sure that this causes some cases of ‘frozen armies’ people are complaining about..



I assigned monarch points to idea groups again. I want to complete influence and expansion idea groups here. The -20% aggressive expansion from influence stacks nicely with the -25% aggressive expansion national tradition Ryukyu has.

Meanwhile, you can see Lan Xang occupying entire Ning and fighting off armies. I didn’t do a thing there… I got no screenshot , but I fed 100% warscore of Ning to Lan Xang.

Pegu and Lan Xang fed and happy.



I started a third front in yet another continent, to link up Portuguese mexico CN to New Spain CN. The idea in the long run is to have a corridor from South America to North America. Then the colonial armies from South Amercia can actually walk all the way to thirteen colonies in ne America, to help out with wars there. Got to plan ahead, as always.

Remember that colony I snatched from Scotland in Newfoundland ages ago? I made colonies to expand my coring range south into the Caribbean off that. The idea (in the long run) is to create a CN of me own in middle America. I want to core a corridor to the gulf of Tehuantepec, to be able to core stuff in South America after, to get the ability to make claims there to start wars versus stray catholic flipped westernised tribes. As said before, a world conquest requires planning ahead.




Back to the Europe front. Bohemia was the first to fall. They got reduced to OPM, and yet again, Austria gets even bigger.



Austria whined and cried after that, begging for more food. Fine fine, have a piece of Saxony then! Austria got fed until its little belly almost burst, and I gave them soft pats on the back. Austria gave a nice little burp and began digesting 100% overextension (or 5,00 in unrest icon)

Austria fed and happy.

Some folks reading this might wonder: why feed them Altmark? That province is landlocked; Austria can’t core it

Wrong. Many folks probably don’t know this but: the emperor of the HRE can core stuff ANYWHERE in the HRE, even if the provinces are landlocked and normally impossible to core by any nation that isn’t emperor. Trust me, Austria just cored Altmark




Nevertheless, I made slight error there. I thought Sweden had claim on Holstein: the idea was to feed Holstein to Sweden. If a nation has a claim on a province, and that nation is in the war with you, then you can transfer occupation of that claimed province to them. But its Slesvig they had claim on. D’oh. Oh well, Holstein will live… for now.

Note that this a screenshot of peace deal window: The light red provinces of England are actually sieged up! But I needed way more warscore to end the war.

Fun fact: I didn’t realise there was land bridge between England and Ireland now. That must be new. In the end, as occupations progressed, Ryukyu walked from England to Ireland. Sure, why not. I bet the Sea there isn’t as deep as the Bosporus between current European and Asian part of Turkey… The Bosporus near the bridge of Istanbul is 110 meters (330 feet) (!) deep, if you are interested. Yet in this game we walk over that Sea strait with no problems. We walk from England to Ireland. But ingame, we can NOT walk over the strait of Gibraltar between Iberia and North Africa.

Anyone care to explain the logic in that



I finished up expansion idea group, and gained my precious overseas expansion CB on all non westernised Asian/African nations. Yay. Sweden is finishing the last sieges on mainland Norway. I didn’t bother sieging the Norwegian islands. The idea is to full annex Norway in the next decades. I can core Greenland from Newfoundland (I think) and once that’s done I can likely core Shetlands and Faroer isles. But that wasn’t on my mind really, I got ages left to deal with Norway. Same as Scotland… I just let them colonize.



For now, I fed all mainland Norwegian provinces but their capital to Sweden.



I made a seperate peace with Cornwall. The idea was to attack them when truce was gone, and to feed them to England.

Looking back, I should have full annexed them, since England had claims on all the provinces. But I didn’t want the fuss of selling claims to England, as the AI can be wonky in accepting provinces with claims on, if they are overextended already. I didn’t give the matter enough thought.. And France made use of the momentum to INVADE Cornwall. Yes, France can into South England… I was looking and admiring the sight of England being fully occupied. Isn’t it beautiful

Like the Spanish force PU war, it gave a great deal of satisfaction to realise I occupied them all by myself!

I didn’t take screenshot if it, but I had enough warscore to force England into a PU already then. VICTORY IS OURS

England became the fourth Ryukyan greater power subject, after Spain, Portugal and Sweden.



Back to the Asian front. I was already sieging Oirat for a while now, while Oirat runned around like a headless chicken trying to deal with all the other hordes invading them. Funny enough, PORTUGAL sent troops to help out in Asia.

Err, sure why not



Portugal walked south around Tang, and engaged the rebels there. Attaboy

The rebels lasted maybe once combat round… The military tech difference makes all rebels and nations food there, for European armies.

Here you can see Oirat. Western Oirat is occupied by the hordes, And I focussed on creating a corridor between Pegu and Russia, including a few provinces from Buratyia.

 

[atwix]

I rolled my eyes when I saw this

So THAT is why Spain and Portugal didn’t invade England… They were ferrying troops to… Asia. Spain invaded Korea. And no, I didn’t assign them to do that, the AI just considered it a wise move. SIGH

Oh well, at least Portugal killed all rebels in Lan Xang.



Yep, France CAN into southern England. Bet you don’t see that a lot. But I suppose, if they can integrate the Bretons, they can integrate the Welsh aswell, right



And yes, Austria can into Italy. They integrated Milan at an insane speed

They started integrating them in 1658, and it finished already. And they are claiming entire Venice too now. I don’t know if I have to shudder at the thought of a war versus Austria, or to look forward to it.



I full annexed Colima on the left, and did this peace deal on Itza. In the long run, I’ll core Tehuantepec after coring the province north of it, and after coring Tehuantepec I’ll core the territory of Colima, and I’ll have my own colonial nation. Yay. Operation “Corridor” complete… The army of the CN California can walk to Inca territory now if they want.



Poland made Lithuania a vassal, and now they ate a good part of Riga aswell. I think Austria frowned when they realised Poland can’t be diplo vassalised anymore…



It happened. IT HAPPENED!!!!

I had been waiting for ages for this heirless Rurikovich old bugger to die heirless during some war, and he finally DID in march 1661. Russia got a new king of my dynasty, because I was their highest tax base RM partner. I explained how I got the RM with Russia in chapter 8… I did it when they were weak. This is the result.

Needlessly to say, I IMMEDIATELY recalled diplomats and ended the Oirat war (could have gotten more out of that war, but I got to take the opportunity here!!!!!) and managed to conjure up a peace deal that installed a corridor from Pegu into Russia. You might wonder why these ‘corridors’ I make are so important… In the long run, it enables European PU troops to WALK to China, if I can force Russia into a PU

Russia is really TOO easy forced into PU subject status these days. It happens a lot, since they almost NO natural royal marriage partners. This gives them REALLY low heir spawning chance. Combine that with an old Rurikovich heirless king, and it usually happens before you know it, with a succession war. But since Russia was at WAR here, they just got a noble of my dynasty here. LUCKY I might add, or Austria would have declared succession war on me over the right to have Russia as minor PU subject.

Anyways, next up: force PU war on Russia. I claimed throne of Russia



One day peace, and I took the opportunity to sell Portugal and Spain a province in China. Subjects will always accept to BUY a province you cored, since they get free core on it then.

I did this to enable Portugal and Spain to lose black flagged status in Asia. If not, those stacks would wait for transport back to Europe in the nearest port province, and turn invisible to me. In the end, the Portuguese and Spanish stack in Asia walked to these provinces and lost Black flag status. But they waited for transport there nevertheless. SIGH. Can’t you bloody walk NORTH into Russia and make yourself usefull

Guess not.



I exited to menu for a while there, to make a (popular demand) diplomatic screenshot of the ironman save window. Russia isn’t even THAT big. Its usually a lot bigger, once it manages to start blobbing in 16th century. Remember the coalition war they did versus me? It hampered their growth for decades, as all vultures landed on their corpse after I beaten them silly…

You can see the corridor I created in Pegu towards Russia. If Russia is forced into PU, all my subject land will link UP!!



Fun fact: Austria would never join any war versus Russia, because it was considered “distant war”. But after I force PU’d England, Austria got a free rival slot, since they lost England as rival. They rivalled Russia right after. This gave them more willingness to join a war versus them. And they did, with a 10x positive bonus versus 9x malus due to distance.

HERE WE GO!! Georgia was made co-belligerent, and they called Polotsk in. My own army was near Constantinople, since the original plan was to invade Ottomans after the Oirat war, asking help of Austria. Once the Russian king died, I ferried them over to Georgian border, to invade them the day I declared on Russia.

Guess I had Georgia on my mind

This war is over before it started, as Russia is still WEAK. I outnumber them ten to one easily



Georgia got defeated easily.



Polotsk got overwhelmed. And Russian capital fell within months, because I assigned a 1k stack with 2 siege pip general (with a load of cannons from subjects attached) to siege up Moskva.

What about Russian army? They stayed in Buratyia, sieging up stuff. Come on Russia, give me some challenge here

…No? Ok fine then, your call



Guess I create some challenge for myself elsewhere then. I declared on Mamluks, and Greece (yes Greece, they are OPM in Trebizond), Tunis, Morocco, Tlemcen and Timbuktu joined in.

Why not Ottomans you might wonder. Well, planning ahead is why. I want to link up the Ottoman coast provinces I got with the subject provinces in North Africa. AND I want to conquer Jerusalem and Mecca ASAP, to get more missionaries (conquering Jerusalem and Mecca as catholic nation gives bonuses: more missionaries and more yearly prestige gain; consider it a bonus for crusading your way into ownership of the religious centra). I will need those, since reformation ended (lost additional missionaries) and I will need to convert a load of provinces after I finish integrating Crimea, Pegu and Lan Xang. My diplomats were working tirelessly to improve relation with them, to get them to +190 relation, to start integrations.

I let Sweden and Austria occupy Russia, and moved my entire Ryukyu army into Mamluks and North Africa.



I wanted MORE snowballing

I declared on Aztec, declared on the entire alliance web in South America, and declared on Malacca.

Because why not. Aztecs got reduced to OPM, and all colonial armies marched south to South America.



Polotsk fell fast aswell. Sweden got a good part of their provinces. You will probably think “Hey Sweden can’t CORE that!” Yes they can, since I transferred occupation of the Ostrov province to Sweden.

Important tip: If you occupy all land between a core of yours and uncored landlocked provinces, you can core the landlocked provinces that were previously uncorable.

Example: After I transferred occupation of the Russian province Ostrov to Sweden, Sweden was able to core all the Polotsk provinces they got south of it.



Spain landed some troops in Mamluk territory. I started occupying from the east. That 19 fleet is ferrying more troops into East Mamluk area. Where are the Mamluks, by the way



They are doing an occupation party in the west, with the help of.. everyone. Be my guest



Meanwhile, the Austrian and Swedish stacks are splitting up, sieging Russia eastwards, and doing great job at it.



And England? England is just chilling in London. SIGH. I got so fed up with England making no transports, that I sold my own transports to them for free. And now, MOVE YOUR BUTT England

Pretty Please



Guess what? They DID

They landed their army where I needed it, in Mamluk territory. RUBRUB my eyes, the AI does what I want

My general died of shock when he saw the army he defeated before; it must be resurrected to haunt him! I rolled my eyes at his naivity, and replaced him with an even better three star general. And yes, I rolled a few bad generals first. When rolling for a general, I always am willing to roll 4 times, to get good ones. Then I dismiss the bad ones.



In other news, Malacca and Ligor fed Pegu a bit more. Malacca and Ligor are OPM now.



Georgia and Greece combine gave Crimea 100% overextension.

Crimea fed and happy.

Russia gave in, without ever doing a fight, so to speak. VICTORY IS OURS

But this felt akward, because I hardly lifted a finger versus Russia. Anyways, my subject land connected from England to Japan, so to speak.

Oh, and I gave Sweden that Ostrov province in the Russian peace deal. Instead of a corridor from Austria over Danish Territory into Sweden, I made a corridor from Ryukyu into Sweden near Crimean vassal territory. I can actually integrate Sweden now, because my Bryansk core province is next to Sweden now.

And yes, the peace deal with Polotsk, the transfer occupation to Sweden of Ostrov and then giving Ostrov to Sweden in Russian peace deal, was all… planned ahead



England and Spain helped out to fight, rout and eventually stack wipe the brunt of the combined main army of the enemy alliance web.

I moved the occupation stacks westwards, and in the end I started sieging Tunis, Tlemcen and Morocco.



Remember that South American war I started? Again, I hardly lifted a finger, and the colonial army stacks did the job. What I did do, is capturing an inland colony of a tribe there. Because why not. It was at 800+ population, and in the long run, I can create a colonial nation in south America off it by using my colonist.



I ended that war: I fed the colonial nation New Granada exactly 100% overextension, and I took the province that was most south and coreable by Ryukyu for myself, and created land corridor to it. This gave me holy war CB against Cusco, and a chance for claim making, IF they westernise and flip catholic. Having cores here and there can pay off, to conquer nations you otherwise wouldn’t have a CB against. I want to avoid that late game, I have to do countless no CB wars to conquer entire America. And this move prevents that.

 

[atwix]

Poland full annexed Polotsk. Poland deserves ugly border prize here. I started a war versus Galicia-Volhynia, to keep Russia from declaring independence. As if they would. But the idea is to be at war constantly here, to keep PU subjects from ever declaring independence.

Important tip: Pu subjects get a -50 malus to declare independence IF their overlord started a war. PU subjects (In 1.9.2) calculate whether or not to declare independence comparing their military rating to the overlord. In 1.10 and later, this entire PU subject feeding way of conquering the world might have be nerfed into the ground, with the new liberty desire mechanic for subjects. But there will always be new ways. IF you keep your diplo tech same as your PU subjects, maintain good relations, and stay at war forever, maybe PU subjects will still fight for you everywhere, constantly. I won’t try soon, though. Feel free to comment in this thread whether or not it still works in recent patches.



To keep my Asian subjects busy, I declared on Wu. They got no allies, and now I catch them before other nations declare on them too…

Their army got routed south and got stack wiped.



The north African war was moving westwards and more westwards. Only Timbuktu isn’t occupied yet.

And then… Around the month of July 1668, I glanced at the disputed succession window as I tend to do a lot. Imagine my surprise seeing Austria listed in GREEN there.

……………………….


WHAT?!

This can’t be happening… The current emperor is 4x years old, and he had a young heir last time I looked. Somehow the heir died. Might have missed an event that did it, don't know...

I bet you probably think now “Nooo, I don’t buy it”. But you’d be surprised how many heirs die. What happens usually is that ONE heir gets replaced by ANOTHER, if an heir dies of natural causes or by event. But there is always chance a greater power turns heirless and shows up in disputed succession window.

This is WHY casual inspection of greater power their diplomacy window now and then, along with inspecting disputed succession window now and then, is SO important in game of Thrones aka PU mechanic. If you DO NOT do this, you miss chances to do a RM to get dynasty spreads or succession wars, and you miss chances to get greater powers as PU subject.

Austria is a lucky nation, and they got like 8 royal marriages. I got no clue how long they are heirless already, but likely only for a month, maybe two. With THAT many RM, Austria can get an heir ANY DAY.

OOOOH BOY

Needless to say I recalled a diplomat, to claim the throne of Austria. I maybe get ONE shot here to force PU Austria, and I HAVE to take it.

But all my diplomats were working to improve relations in Asia, with my vassals, and with Ning, to move them out of the coalition. It will take 3 MONTHS before they are back..

ARGH

I do hope Austria will stay heirless a couple of months… Lucky enough, they did. Austria had maybe 9x Prestige, and I had 100. I claimed their throne.

This will be the war of all wars

My heartbeat and sweat level increased through the roof, and began looking where all the PU subject armies are. Russian and Swedish army were mainly around Galicia-Volhynia killing Swedish rebels, and Austria armies are around Bulgaria, killing off my rebels there.

What I don’t get: WHY do ally nations (who trust you utterly) kill your rebels, even if they got almost no manpower left? Austria bled itself badly in Bulgaria, killing off various rebel stacks… Including a massive noble rebel stack of 60k inside Austria, before it moved its armies east into my territory there.

I thought "GOOD! I’ll start force PU war and move the Swedish and Russian armies southwest to kill the leftover Austrian army. NOW OR NEVER "



And then…. My mouth fell open

I stared for like 30 seconds at my trusted sony gdm-fw900 CRT, thinking “what-the-FU*K?!” (excuse the language).

…..


This… cannot be


……



But… It is

I was watching Austria killing my rebels in Bulgarian territory (after they went to peace with Russia), with their entire combined army of maybe 70-80 troops. During a battle, I got these popups.

The Austrian emperor got killed, while leading a battle versus those rebels, most likely. HE LITERALLY DIED BEFORE MY EYES, when Austria was at peace. Because I had claimed their throne, I got the PU for free, without a succession war or a force PU war.

I have seen some WEIRD stuff in my 1000+ hours of EU4, but this beats it all. This was a really spooky moment.. It almost felt I killed the digital Austrian emperor by force of mind.

GEEZ, I got AUSTRIA as PU subject for free

And Tuscany is emperor now. Talk about unexpected stuff happening in EU4. This beats it all.

The original plan I had was to start force PU war on Austria, vassalise the two archbishopric electors Austria had as allies, and end the Force PU war when I was sure I’d be elected emperor of the HRE when I forced Austria in a PU.

Well, that didn’t work out as planned…. But have you seen the size of that Austria? And I got it for free as a subject nation!

That’s three PU in a row, in a few decades. I now have 6 greater power PU subjects, and three big vassals. Before 1700. Guess I did it again……

I started a war versus OPM Transylvania, to put Austria in a war again. No more wars now, as I needed a day of peace to start integration of 3 vassals.



Golden horde got reduced to OPM.



Galicia-Volhynia aswell.

Crimea fed and happy.



Wu got reduced to OPM.

Lan Xang fed and happy.



I transferred occupations again to Spain, based from the province they got from the province they got from the Ottomans decades ago. If you wondered why: here is why. It enabled me to transfer occupations inside Mamluk territory to Spain, all the way up to the most eastern province I took from Tunis in that same Ottoman war.



I fed Portugal as many low base tax provinces as I could in North Africa, to reduce the number of sieges needed in future wars. All that land Portugal gained didn’t put them past 100 overextension… And Portugal is paying the double coring cost to make cores on Berber land, NOT me.



I fed Spain a good part of the western desert port provinces the Mamluks have, I took some provinces in western and Eastern Mamluk territory for myself.

I was contemplating for a long while whether to give Spain a full corridor towards Tunis, or to do THIS.

In the end, I chose this, to have a shot at Red sea cored province in next war. I took Jerusalem and cored it. Next war, the idea is to take and core the province south of Gaza, to have a red sea port with a core. This will then enable me to take and core Mecca in the end.

The reason I took the western provinces for myself is getting the ownership of the corridor into Africa. These corridors are actually very important! After I core those western provinces, I will colonize the 2 provinces to get a border with the West African nation down south. Once I have that, I will sell that southern colony to England, and England and Portugal will be fed entire Western Africa. Got to plan ahead!



I made Transylvania a part of Austria, but I didn’t have peace. Frankfurt called me in as defender of catholic faith versus some other heretic HRE states.

Sigh

Fine, lets be quick about it then.



There we go, I got the bonus from conquering Jerusalem. Austria swarmed the HRE states attacking Frankfurt. I personally made sure they did



I was so focussed on other stuff that I took my eye of rebels in America. They enforced demands and ruined the corridor in middle America. ARGH

But, I got my own colonial nation now.. New Ryukyu.



In other news: Japan invaded Korea, with the help of Ning. Japan has mainland provinces now.. Lets see if they can keep them..



After some weird luck with PU with Austria, time for our share of unexpected weird events.

Ooookay, I guess I keep that heir Weak claim be damned. Did you ever read that event text?

I have to bring up “the devil in a woman’s body, and the temptation of the flesh” during my weekly church confession on Sunday. Uh-huh



“I love you guys!” Now that’s a handy event to keep all PU subject opinions above 200… Looking at the event text, I indeed have a rowdy family of subjects, that needs a firm hand to guide them. *grin*



I got fed up with this HRE war and asked east Frisia province to be done with it. Why East Frisia? It’s the only province I can core, that is NOT a part of the HRE. Remember, TUSCANY is HRE Emperor now, and would do unlawful territory on me if I took anything else….

I was at PEACE now for once, and took the momentum to start integration of Pegu, Lan Xang and Crimea.


That’s three in a row, times two



As last screenshot, on popular demand, a diplomatic scope of Ryukyu and its subjects, in 1670, in ironmade save window.

The Pope said on his Sunday sermon:

“….. And Ryukyu shall be snowballing forever after. Amen.”

Hope you enjoyed this (long) chapter!

 

[Quickslow87]

I like that your empire is finally connected from Western Europe all the way to the Far East.