Originally posted by CitizenPaul
well played, bulldog!
Any idead where that swedish invincibility comes from?
Make a guess.
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Make a guess.
I'd say that ratio of attrition to combat is about right. I tend to lose less to both, but my ratio will be even more skewed towards attrition. I also seem to always end in wars with Sweden, and they are always incredibly tough. Plus all that attrition. At some point you're going to have to pull a 'Peter the Great' on them - build enough galleys to transport an army directly in Svealand. Then you can finally start to teach the Swedes a lesson or two!
Good point. By coincidence that is exactly what I recently did (playing year is 1609).
The 'invincible' swedes are gone in this next war so I suppose there is a king now and then that add to theri morale, right? Now they're just 'very strong'.
The 'invincible' swedes are gone in this next war so I suppose there is a king now and then that add to theri morale, right? Now they're just 'very strong'.
It won't get any easier for u, in 1611 Gustavus Adolphus comes with 6/6/5/1 stats IIRC. Then a whole band of other great leaders such as Torstensson & Banér in the late 20's.
Then a whole band of other great leaders such as Torstensson & Banér in the late 20's.
Designers sure did favour their country heavily.
Surely swedish generals weren't that awesome (or Sweden would rule the world by now )
And when it comes right down to it, who was it now who build a giant warship only to have it capside and sink short off the shore?
Surely swedish generals weren't that awesome (or Sweden would rule the world by now
)And when it comes right down to it, who was it now who build a giant warship only to have it capside and sink short off the shore?
1585-1599; the long peace
-----------------------------------
The almost constant state of war in the 15th and early 16th century was wearing off like a storm. There had been one peacefull period allready before the latest turkish/swedish war, but it had seemed like the intensity of the worlds' antagonism was in decline. The next 15 years was going to prove this by being a period of constant peace.
Peace, of cource, allows countries to invest money into civilian tasks and diplomacy instead of throwing them into forever dwindling armies. As mentioned in the last section, the swedish DoW was not all inconvenient because it had also lead to a break up of their alliance with Denmark. Now a new alliance had formed between Denmark, Saxony and Pskov and I used a fair amount of money on improving the relations with Denmark. Eventually in 1589 Russia was accepted into the alliance.
Whereas it might seem a bit strange to let minor Denmark be allianceleader, the primary objective was to seal off Sweden so as to pacify them or to make a twofrontwar if they really DoWed again (which I had a sure gut feeling about). Another advantage of being allied to Denmark would be to cause trouble to the Hanseatic League if they were to go rampaging again. I had been unable to do any real damage to them in the previous wars.
A secondary advantage was the option to use danish ports in the event of war. That would shorten the traveltime to Louga (in Africa) and lower those pesky attrition losses.
This long period was also spend at extending the russian colonial possesions to the far east. Eventually my conquistadors reached the Chinese sea and made contact with the chinese. After some unsuccessfull attempts, a colony was founded at Nakhodka and expanded enough to accomodate the 1000 natives there. Buidling a fort and sending some troops, it was planned to be the russian base of operations in the east. The chinese were expected to have lots of armies of course so the Nakhodka defense wouldn't hold out in the event of war, but I supposed that a fort might be a small deterrent against the AIs decision to DoW for quick gains. Just a guess, but fact is that no war arrived there from 1589 to 1599.
Peace also means luck it seems. Untill this time almost all random events had been negative ones. Now, however, luck was smiling at the russian empire: 500d worth of mineral deposits, new CoTs in Nuakchot, Nakhodka and Angara (well, that was in 1600 really). Especially the CoT in Nakhodka was a blast: near 2k trade from day 1 since it included a lot of big chinese provinces! I was able to establish and hold a monopoly there in considerably long periods. By 1599 773d of the total annual income of 2196 was from trade - a drastic growth by some 400-500 from the wartime tradeincme.
By 1599 Russia had also managed to build its' first naval equipment plant in Vologda (chosen for its' safe distance to any frontier and no nationalism). The bonus to the naval reasearch was much needed because the russians needed to concentrate on the lagging land tech.
Out in the world, France declared war against Spain and Austria, but that had no consequence for Russia.
There is little more to add about this preiod really. You could almost call it boring, however the jobs done during this time were necessary to complete objective 2: establish Russia as a major (colonial) power that could not be overturned by its' major european neighbours.
Status by 1599:
--------------------
Provinces: 55
Army: 177/8/86
Navy: 5/9/2
Alliances: Denmark, Saxony, Pskov
Wars: none.
Income: 2.196/y (0 loans)
Tech: 9/5/4/4
-----------------------------------
The almost constant state of war in the 15th and early 16th century was wearing off like a storm. There had been one peacefull period allready before the latest turkish/swedish war, but it had seemed like the intensity of the worlds' antagonism was in decline. The next 15 years was going to prove this by being a period of constant peace.
Peace, of cource, allows countries to invest money into civilian tasks and diplomacy instead of throwing them into forever dwindling armies. As mentioned in the last section, the swedish DoW was not all inconvenient because it had also lead to a break up of their alliance with Denmark. Now a new alliance had formed between Denmark, Saxony and Pskov and I used a fair amount of money on improving the relations with Denmark. Eventually in 1589 Russia was accepted into the alliance.
Whereas it might seem a bit strange to let minor Denmark be allianceleader, the primary objective was to seal off Sweden so as to pacify them or to make a twofrontwar if they really DoWed again (which I had a sure gut feeling about). Another advantage of being allied to Denmark would be to cause trouble to the Hanseatic League if they were to go rampaging again. I had been unable to do any real damage to them in the previous wars.
A secondary advantage was the option to use danish ports in the event of war. That would shorten the traveltime to Louga (in Africa) and lower those pesky attrition losses.
This long period was also spend at extending the russian colonial possesions to the far east. Eventually my conquistadors reached the Chinese sea and made contact with the chinese. After some unsuccessfull attempts, a colony was founded at Nakhodka and expanded enough to accomodate the 1000 natives there. Buidling a fort and sending some troops, it was planned to be the russian base of operations in the east. The chinese were expected to have lots of armies of course so the Nakhodka defense wouldn't hold out in the event of war, but I supposed that a fort might be a small deterrent against the AIs decision to DoW for quick gains. Just a guess, but fact is that no war arrived there from 1589 to 1599.
Peace also means luck it seems. Untill this time almost all random events had been negative ones. Now, however, luck was smiling at the russian empire: 500d worth of mineral deposits, new CoTs in Nuakchot, Nakhodka and Angara (well, that was in 1600 really). Especially the CoT in Nakhodka was a blast: near 2k trade from day 1 since it included a lot of big chinese provinces! I was able to establish and hold a monopoly there in considerably long periods. By 1599 773d of the total annual income of 2196 was from trade - a drastic growth by some 400-500 from the wartime tradeincme.
By 1599 Russia had also managed to build its' first naval equipment plant in Vologda (chosen for its' safe distance to any frontier and no nationalism). The bonus to the naval reasearch was much needed because the russians needed to concentrate on the lagging land tech.
Out in the world, France declared war against Spain and Austria, but that had no consequence for Russia.
There is little more to add about this preiod really. You could almost call it boring, however the jobs done during this time were necessary to complete objective 2: establish Russia as a major (colonial) power that could not be overturned by its' major european neighbours.
Status by 1599:
--------------------
Provinces: 55
Army: 177/8/86
Navy: 5/9/2
Alliances: Denmark, Saxony, Pskov
Wars: none.
Income: 2.196/y (0 loans)
Tech: 9/5/4/4
1599-1610; another sandwich war
--------------------------------------------
In the early game, the many ineffective PL DoWs I had attributed to the polish play that had some incessant need to DoW Russia regardles of its' unpreparedness. However, I was gradually realising that all the AI (at least at normal level) behaves like this: DoW, rush forward with one or two armies for that purpose, build whatever affordable during the next januaries and propose very demanding peacetreaties. Did Paradox think this would work?
Not against me anyway, 'cause I'm stubborn as hell and rarely ever accept to pay any reperations - let alone territories. If one can hold out, the AI seems always to fumble around and loose massively to attrition. Then one can strike back and often make a good gain.
In this period it happened again and because of the nations involved I was beginning to think that stupid DoWs was not just a polish flaw, but a general AI-one. The only thing that ever made the AI play a challenge was the number of simultaneous wars.
In 1601 Turkley declares war on Denmark and Russia honours its' alliance. Turkey has almost the entire muslim world with it (except Marocco).
As I just described, Turkey followed the predictable pattern and immediately advanced on Azow (recently captured from Crimea). This time, however, they did not win the initial battle even with a 23:16 superiority. This win curtailed the turkish options right away.
Still the same, the turkish alliance managed to lay siege to Azow after its' third attack (28:6) and against Chernigov at 38:15 odds.
Losses, sure, but both provinces were of a fairly limited value with Azow being of any importance primarily because of the sea access to the Black Sea/Mediterranean.
Hence the general situation was not worrying despite the enemy laying siege to some of my provinces. E.g. Azow was close to 5k and I was sort of hoping the turks would kill off enough for me to be able to send a missionary. Also, Turkey had some TPs that I wanted and I captured those territories without opposition, bruned them and rebuild them myself.
Finally, I had been looking for a province in the Mediterranean which could be used as a naval base for troops enroute to Africa. I sitll suffered to much attrition on this route. As Turkey had several good targetprovinces, the war was kind of a present. I eventually went for Morea and Athens. This became possible in 1603 when Crimea offered a seperate peace, yielding Kerch, Kalmuk and Kaffa. These gains gave me 3 provinces to build ships for the Mediterranean sea in. Crimea had been under attack by Georgia too (gained one province).
An expedtion of about 11 ships was sent out with about 8k troops to invade Morea. This fleet was supplemented by reinforcements of the seagoing ships from my baltic fleet (about 5). The result of the following naval battles were somewhat mixed as Turkey had one fleet with 30+ ships. But there were numerous small fleets which at one occasion in 1604 gave me the rutters of Turkey which revealed a lot of the far asian southeast.
It should perhaps be mentioned at this point that Turkey had allready waged war on several other nations by the time they declared war on Turkey. So warexhaustion was naturally going up. By 1607 there were rebellions in Hellas, Macedonia, Illyria, Bulgaria, Ragusa and even in Trace - the turkish capital!
In 1604-1605 the usual lemmingeffect kicked in: PL which was now allied to Sweden declared war. The followed an unfounde DoW by Austria (Hungary, Genoa, Parma, Spain and Bohemia). The latter war never materialised into action.
I had kept forces on standby in Danzig and at a few other location so they were ready to invade Poland. I had no further territorial desires into polish territories (no russian shields left - mission) so I aimed at capturing a few provinces that would earn a white peace. That was achieved in late 1605 which also broke up the PL-swedish alliance.
The swedish were quick at allying with Venice, Portugal and Persia so that led to a new war with no consequence.
PL had been at war with Turkey too all along, but made peace for the gain of Dobrudja. That was not unwelcome either since it pushed back the untill then too hastily growing turkish empire.
War with Austira/Hungary did have its' advantages actually. I was unable to get enough army through to besiege Morea and Athens by sea alone, but with Hungary being enemy territory, I could march armies directly over land to Athens/Morea, which I did.
In the north, I had had a prepared army or two ready for the next swedish attack. The usual lunge for Ingermanland was repulse while I launched attacks at Savolax and Karelia. I topped it off by an amphbious invasion of the swedish capital and as that fort turned into yellow status, the swedish offered peace for Karelia and Savolax. All the russian shielded provinces were now held (mission 1 completed).
In 1608 the villains of the HL and their new allies in Bohemia declared war, but nothing ever came of it except for a faiuled attack towards Danzig and a russian counterattack towards eastern Pommerania. Feeling indifferent about gains in that sector, I made peace with HL in 1610 with the HL paying 14 dukats. The most significant part of this war was to allow Denmark to reoccupy Jutland and to capture Holstein. This greatly strenghtened the alliance and provided Russia with a harbour access during wartimes in Holstein. The colonies in Africa could now surely be reached with much less attrition - should it ever be needed.
A bizare incident was a DoW from the Moguhal and Hyderabad. This was because of a TP on the indian continent I think. I later entered a white peace despite them having burnt my TP, but simply in order to stop warexhaustion. The TP was later restored.
During all the battle with Turkey, the biggest problem had been arriving at an acceptabel peace. I wanted Morea for a harbour and would settle with that, but Morea was denied me all the way untill 1610. Untill then - despite 5 stars - Azerbadjan, which I had also captured was the eternal offer. I kept asking for Morea and it was always rejected. I held Azer, Morea, Athens and Albania, but had only 5 stars - possibly due to lost naval battles.
In the end - right after having rejected my offer for Morea alone - Turkey suddenly offered both Azerbadjan and Morea.
A total triumph in both north and south!
Ending stats 1610:
-------------------------
Provinces: 64
Army: 142/23/148
Navy: 1/18/0
Wars: none
Alliances: Denmark
Income/year: 2.387
Tech: 11/5/4/5
--------------------------------------------
In the early game, the many ineffective PL DoWs I had attributed to the polish play that had some incessant need to DoW Russia regardles of its' unpreparedness. However, I was gradually realising that all the AI (at least at normal level) behaves like this: DoW, rush forward with one or two armies for that purpose, build whatever affordable during the next januaries and propose very demanding peacetreaties. Did Paradox think this would work?
Not against me anyway, 'cause I'm stubborn as hell and rarely ever accept to pay any reperations - let alone territories. If one can hold out, the AI seems always to fumble around and loose massively to attrition. Then one can strike back and often make a good gain.
In this period it happened again and because of the nations involved I was beginning to think that stupid DoWs was not just a polish flaw, but a general AI-one. The only thing that ever made the AI play a challenge was the number of simultaneous wars.
In 1601 Turkley declares war on Denmark and Russia honours its' alliance. Turkey has almost the entire muslim world with it (except Marocco).
As I just described, Turkey followed the predictable pattern and immediately advanced on Azow (recently captured from Crimea). This time, however, they did not win the initial battle even with a 23:16 superiority. This win curtailed the turkish options right away.
Still the same, the turkish alliance managed to lay siege to Azow after its' third attack (28:6) and against Chernigov at 38:15 odds.
Losses, sure, but both provinces were of a fairly limited value with Azow being of any importance primarily because of the sea access to the Black Sea/Mediterranean.
Hence the general situation was not worrying despite the enemy laying siege to some of my provinces. E.g. Azow was close to 5k and I was sort of hoping the turks would kill off enough for me to be able to send a missionary. Also, Turkey had some TPs that I wanted and I captured those territories without opposition, bruned them and rebuild them myself.
Finally, I had been looking for a province in the Mediterranean which could be used as a naval base for troops enroute to Africa. I sitll suffered to much attrition on this route. As Turkey had several good targetprovinces, the war was kind of a present. I eventually went for Morea and Athens. This became possible in 1603 when Crimea offered a seperate peace, yielding Kerch, Kalmuk and Kaffa. These gains gave me 3 provinces to build ships for the Mediterranean sea in. Crimea had been under attack by Georgia too (gained one province).
An expedtion of about 11 ships was sent out with about 8k troops to invade Morea. This fleet was supplemented by reinforcements of the seagoing ships from my baltic fleet (about 5). The result of the following naval battles were somewhat mixed as Turkey had one fleet with 30+ ships. But there were numerous small fleets which at one occasion in 1604 gave me the rutters of Turkey which revealed a lot of the far asian southeast.
It should perhaps be mentioned at this point that Turkey had allready waged war on several other nations by the time they declared war on Turkey. So warexhaustion was naturally going up. By 1607 there were rebellions in Hellas, Macedonia, Illyria, Bulgaria, Ragusa and even in Trace - the turkish capital!
In 1604-1605 the usual lemmingeffect kicked in: PL which was now allied to Sweden declared war. The followed an unfounde DoW by Austria (Hungary, Genoa, Parma, Spain and Bohemia). The latter war never materialised into action.
I had kept forces on standby in Danzig and at a few other location so they were ready to invade Poland. I had no further territorial desires into polish territories (no russian shields left - mission) so I aimed at capturing a few provinces that would earn a white peace. That was achieved in late 1605 which also broke up the PL-swedish alliance.
The swedish were quick at allying with Venice, Portugal and Persia so that led to a new war with no consequence.
PL had been at war with Turkey too all along, but made peace for the gain of Dobrudja. That was not unwelcome either since it pushed back the untill then too hastily growing turkish empire.
War with Austira/Hungary did have its' advantages actually. I was unable to get enough army through to besiege Morea and Athens by sea alone, but with Hungary being enemy territory, I could march armies directly over land to Athens/Morea, which I did.
In the north, I had had a prepared army or two ready for the next swedish attack. The usual lunge for Ingermanland was repulse while I launched attacks at Savolax and Karelia. I topped it off by an amphbious invasion of the swedish capital and as that fort turned into yellow status, the swedish offered peace for Karelia and Savolax. All the russian shielded provinces were now held (mission 1 completed).
In 1608 the villains of the HL and their new allies in Bohemia declared war, but nothing ever came of it except for a faiuled attack towards Danzig and a russian counterattack towards eastern Pommerania. Feeling indifferent about gains in that sector, I made peace with HL in 1610 with the HL paying 14 dukats. The most significant part of this war was to allow Denmark to reoccupy Jutland and to capture Holstein. This greatly strenghtened the alliance and provided Russia with a harbour access during wartimes in Holstein. The colonies in Africa could now surely be reached with much less attrition - should it ever be needed.
A bizare incident was a DoW from the Moguhal and Hyderabad. This was because of a TP on the indian continent I think. I later entered a white peace despite them having burnt my TP, but simply in order to stop warexhaustion. The TP was later restored.
During all the battle with Turkey, the biggest problem had been arriving at an acceptabel peace. I wanted Morea for a harbour and would settle with that, but Morea was denied me all the way untill 1610. Untill then - despite 5 stars - Azerbadjan, which I had also captured was the eternal offer. I kept asking for Morea and it was always rejected. I held Azer, Morea, Athens and Albania, but had only 5 stars - possibly due to lost naval battles.
In the end - right after having rejected my offer for Morea alone - Turkey suddenly offered both Azerbadjan and Morea.
A total triumph in both north and south!
Ending stats 1610:
-------------------------
Provinces: 64
Army: 142/23/148
Navy: 1/18/0
Wars: none
Alliances: Denmark
Income/year: 2.387
Tech: 11/5/4/5
I always thought that AI offers were presented in name of the entire alliance. How can u tell the difference?
I know it's been awhile since CitizenPaul asked the question, but...
You can't tell from the offer itself. You have to *know* who the alliance leader is. That country will usually, if not always, make offers in the name of the whole alliance. The individual members can and do offer separate peaces -- that's the only kind they can offer, since they are not empowered to speak for the alliance.
The alliance leader for the purposes of the war is the country involved in the initial declaration (whether aggressor or defender). So the war leader isn't necessarily the same as the regular alliance leader who can invite or ban members.
If you find that you've lost track, try offering peace to your enemies one by one and see whether the screen says that you are dealing with them as an alliance leader or as a separate peace. (Also I think I may have heard once that if you check your diplomacy screen, under the war listing, the enemy war alliance leader gets listed first.)
... You do know that in that screen you can click their shield, right? If they are the alliance leader, you can switch to dealing with them in a separate peace that way...
Whole books could be written about the many ways to manipulate those elements of the system
Interesting.
Probably my memory is incorrect - I thought as Poland I had (after saving) tested several peace offers from different countries - they always brought me total peace with all alliance members. I was very interested in this aspect of peace offers, so just for the test I made saves when it was offered, just to test the system.
And I tested offers from Holstein, Russia, Venice, TO, and other small countries. Even in 1 war several members of the same alliance. But usually some years in between.
I will do some more experimenting in the future.
Probably my memory is incorrect - I thought as Poland I had (after saving) tested several peace offers from different countries - they always brought me total peace with all alliance members. I was very interested in this aspect of peace offers, so just for the test I made saves when it was offered, just to test the system.
And I tested offers from Holstein, Russia, Venice, TO, and other small countries. Even in 1 war several members of the same alliance. But usually some years in between.
I will do some more experimenting in the future.
Especially if you're in a big war, it can be very difficult to keep track of all the enemies properly. A few times I've not made the peace agreements correctly and wound up having to negotiate further. Other times, I get tripped up by one of the exceptions. For example, if you militarily annex the war alliance leader as your peace agreement, you will still be at war with the rest of their alliance. The annexation doesn't count as a peace treaty because it never gets to that screen! In my last game I wound up still at war with Oman for years because I hadn't remembered that fact when I annexed their ally.
And of course, when using separate peaces, remember that they can change you from the defensive party to the offensive party for purposes of accumulating BB points...
So woud I.
But is an old tread and I douth that it will continue now after a couple of months of silence.