AARound the world and time in several screens

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Since Johan announced there won't be any updates on beta-patches for the time being I thought to run an handsoff game and show some screenshots with comments.

The settings:

EU2 version 1.07 beta 4th of may beta
Difficulty Very Hard
AI aggressiveness Normal
Vanilla GC with Peter Ebbesen's SSREM mod
And with me "playing" Dakota.
The screens will mainly cover Europe and the Near East and are taken in the 1280-1024 resolution. I don't have any picture editing software and didn't want to go through all the effort of cutting and pasting screenies together. [edit: I am sorry if it is rather inconvenient viewing the pictures]
If you haven't noticed already this AAR will be mostly screenshots .

As can be seen above Europe is still following the rather standard development. France is pulling herself together despite England still holding on to all its continental possesions. Granada had a reasonable start in taking Andalusia and Murcia from Castillia, but ultimately went the way of the dodo.
Notice that the Papal States have become the main player in Italy and Denmark doing rather nice in Nothern Germany.
The Ottoman Empire managed to take out Byzantium rather quickly, but Genoa annexed Thrace.
The main unusual event I noticed outside Europe was China going for outward expansion in "The strategic decision after Zhen He's Journey"

 

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Interesting...let´s see if the Ottomans can survive this game another 50 or 60 years...

 

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Wow that's a pretty weird screenie for so early in the game
Genoa annexing Thrace
Grenada getting Murica and Andalusia from Castile and then getting smacked down. but with Portugal retaining control of Andalusia. That might screw up Spain later on.
Savoy getting Franche-Comte, yet Burgundy controls Nivernais. France grabbing half of Ireland and with the Irish capital in Lenister. England usually doesn't grab territory in Germany til later but has annexed Oldenburg. Hungary looks strong by annexing Wallachia, but the real suprise is Moldavia annexing Siederburgen; usually in my games Moldavia doesn't expand. the OE annexes Wallachia and Hungary annexes or vassalizes Siederburgen. That's also weird with the OE annexing Ragusa and Bosnia so early. Usually they annex Ragusa but after they annex Albania. Venice usually annexes Bosnia and I'm suprised that Hungary hasn't diplo-annexed Croatia yet. Heh heh Hessen annexing Hannover... That brings back memories of my weirdest GC where the entire HRE was spilt between Hessen, which owned a territory stretching from Flandern to Hinterpommern and souther to Bayern, Bohemia which controlled all of Austria, Hungary, Northern Italy and Poland, and a super-Savoy which owned all of Southwest France, some of southern Iberia all the way to Grenada, even taking Corisca, Sardinia and the Belearics, and half of Italy which it partioned with Spain, which was sandiwched between Portugal, Savoy and France which owned Paris and nothing else in France but had the eastern half of Iberia. That was messed up.

Denmark is kicking ass in your game, annexed Mecklemburg, Bremen, paritioned Pommern wiht Poland, and annexed Friesan and Holstein.
Super Novograd and a fairly large Ak Koyanlu which has seemed to became a trend in my games.
Weird map, great AAR

 

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The last half of the 15th century has been 'interesting' to say the least . Observe below and shudder:

Let's start with the developments on the western front:

England has lost all it's continental posessions save Orleans, to Spain nontheless. Spain doesn't hold Andalusia yet however and I wonder how the lack of a shipyard will affect their colonization.
France has been expanding, though it remains relatively weak compared to my previous games, around 1500 they usually have turned into a very scary behemoth. Not this time though.
Observe at the northeastern end of France a 7 province Palatinat.
Interestingly Scotland is showing strange behaviour, they are the ones that own Iceland, Flandres and Friesen. Zeeland is held by Siena (Most strange indeed).
Denmark unfortunately got beaten to pulp, Poland made a heavy inroad into Germany annexing Brandenburg and Danish territories in Germany. The Gray colour in Narvik is Prussia btw.
Going further eastwards Novgorod has been exchanging land with Muscovy, but my estimate is going to be that Novgorod will be incorporated into Russia later on.
Also notice that Austria has been behaving rather nicely till now, only taking 1 province from Helvatia and refraining from their usuall annexing spree in the HRE.
As to the Mediterranean theatre, the Papal States lost ground in Italy. The province of Naples is being owned by Savoy. On the North African front the Mamelukes are performing extrodinary well, more to that later.
The Ottomans managed to get Thrace from Genoa by defection, as a matter of fact in 1451 a few months after the first screenshot. They haven't been expanding to heavily like they historically did, but they are quite likely to survive as medium to large regional power.
The east is getting rather weird, note that Ak Koyunlu has been expanding but especially the Mamelukes have advanced a great deal, they are the ones controlling southern Persia. The Timurid collapse is the most heaviest I have seen in any of my games so far. Based on the current situation the Mughals are no going to make it. Especially since you can not that there is a very large Dehli on their eastern border. What bothers me the most however is that the 2 remaining Timurid provinces are held by the Mamelukes (Birjand) and the capital Samarkand by the Chatagai Khanate. This stalemate has been going on for some time and I fear that it will keep lasting throughout the game without either side able reaching the other province and none of the ai's reaching a peace agreement . The green coloured Herat is Bengal btw.
The red border through those white provinces in former timurid territory divide between Ak Koyunlu and Sibir.
As to the things I have noticed outside Europe. The Inca's managed to annex the Chimú by military means, only the 2nd time I have seen that happen and in both cases with the 1.07 beta's. Has the Inca AI been improved somehow?
China has been colonizing the spice island and the Eastern Siberain coast, as was to be expected after the ahistorical decision after Zhen He's Journey.
I think these comments cover most of the oddities I have obeserved, if any further questions arise I will try to answer them in the next posts.

 

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Europe anno 1540, just after the Austrian inheritance of Hungary:

Over the past four decades little has changed in Western Europe, most notably is the further Polish advance in Germany. The Palatinat has been reduced significantly to just only 4 provinces. The orange coloured Alsace, Lorraine and Bern are owned by Genoa, the same applies for Gelre.
A major shift of power has occurred in Central Europe. Austria has begun her rise to power with the inheritance of Bohemia, Hungary and she made some gains in the HRE as well.
The Ottomans have despite their bad start in the beginning managed to unify asia minor and consolidated their holdings at the western border with Austria. In the east they took lands from Ak Koyunlu, but no gains were made to south so far.
Amazingly Armenia has gone on a conquering spree penetreting deep into the Khanates, whether they will manage to hold on will be question only time will anser.
The credit for the best comeback goes to the Mughals, down from a 2 province minor both occupied by hostile powers, they managed to cut deep into Dehli and achieve a sounding victory at the battle of Panipat. This resulted in the incorporation of the Sultanate of Dehli and the Mughals are now ready to start consolidating the North of India.

To be continued

 

[Storey]

Poor France can't seem to get started.

Joe

 

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Originally posted by Storey
Poor France can't seem to get started.

Joe

Indeed they don't seem to be getting off, I must admit that this is indeed a rather strange game. I don't recall ever seeing France doing so badly on its own. The only time that happens is when I am around to beat them down in the 1400s.

 

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Hmm..I notice Poland..superpoles?..

 

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Originally posted by Wasa
Hmm..I notice Poland..superpoles?..

Wait till you see the next few screens

 

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I present: "The Purple Menace"

The Mughals are back in business and have managed to conquer over half of India. The Ottomans are doing rather well either and advanced further eastwards. Armenia is down to one province again and is not likely to last much longer. The last interesting part is that China hasn't managed to conquer Manchuria, which I haven't seen happening in a long time, Manchuria surviving from the beginning that is . One last note, a muslim tech China is most scary indeed, they are the leaders in landtech with several levels ahead of the Europeans *shudders*.

In Europe the following major shifts have taken place: Poland has inherited Lithuania and is now at the height of its power, Austria made some gains westwards, and forms Polands biggest threath. The first signs of Polands decline are already beginning to show with German states declaring their independence.

 

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1645

For starters France managed to grab some of her cores in Europe together, but still remains relatively weak compared to other games. Spain managed to let Toledo defect to Aragon and Granada revolted free in Gibraltar, which was annexed by Aragon as well.
Poland lost all its holdings in the west of Germany and has seceeded them to an all powerfull Austria. Notice also that the Palatinat has managed to claw its way up again from a 3-province low.
Russia has taken the remnants of the Golden Horde, but still hasn't moved into Siberia.
The Ottomans are doing exceptionally well having completely conquered the Mamelukes. On the east they are bordered by the powerful Mughals who control most of India at this time.
As to news from the RoTW: Manchuria has been given northern China and in the south the Ming rebels government is falling every 9 months or so, approximately the same amount as in pre 1.07 patches. I also noticed that colonization of Northern America is going extremely slow with only the English making some progress. The spice islands, South Africa and India only have some dutch and Chinese colonies/tradeposts.

 

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Hmm..your latest pic (1645) looks invisible...

 

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That is odd, I can see it clearly, do you have problems viewing the other pictures as well? Perhaps you could try This link perhaps?

 

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Europa anno 1700:

Finally France has managed to grab some of its cores. Austria has continued her expansion and has eaten away at Poland. The Ottomans have expanded some more grabbing half a dozen provinces.
In the East the Uzbeks have been busy annexing the Kazakh horde.

 

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Europa Anno 1740:

Not much difference with the situation in 1700. Poland has declined further and the Russian Bear has finally awaken and pushed through the last remaing khanates into Siberia. However colonization has started of rather late and the Russians haven't managed to colonize very far yet due to their conquistadors being unable to explore over the previous 200 years.
The Ottomans are doing very well in the south having diplo-annexed Morocco.

 

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The World Anno 1819:

Time to wrap this up, my apologies if the loading takes rather long, but I do not know how to put everything into 1 screenshot.

Europe:

Let's start with Europe: The continent has been largely divided up between a few major powers as usual. France has had a poor start and never fully managed to acquire all its cores and is still a kingdom with a monarch due to the French Revolution not happening. Spain failed to annex Aragon and even lost some if its initial cores, but did manage to acquire territories in France. England lost the HYW and did not conquer Scotland or Eire.
Central Europe is dominated by Austria, which is a usual occurrence in most of my games. In Scandinavia Sweden conquered most of the Danish territories and expanded into Russia and the Baltic. Strangely enough Novgorod managed to survive till the end with 2 provinces.
Russia did very badly in the west and did not break through the east until the first half of the 18th century, which is rather unfortunate.
The Ottomans have been doing very well, despite not making it to the gates of Vienna they succeeded into conquering most of the Middle East and North Africa.

Asia:

A very nice performance by the Mughals, who managed to claw their way back from only 2 provinces. Persia however did only form for a short while and was annexed soon afterwards. In South East Asia Ayutthaya has gone on an annexing spree and managed to push into the Himalayas. Only the Chinese and Dutch colonized the Spice Islands.

Africa:

Not much interesting to tell here, a variety of European powers colonized the coast. In Central Africa, the Ashanti and Dahomey managed to take out Mali and Songhai. Benin converted to Catholicism.

North America:

We see here a Catholic Mayan empire that managed to do very well indeed, overrunning the Zapotec, Aztec, Navaho and some Spanish colonies. The United States of America never formed and thus Britain managed to hold onto all its possessions. What is rather strange is that still large tracts of land have remained uncolonized.

South America:

Here the same relative lack of colonization as in North America, though it should be mentioned that Portugal managed to do very well in Brazil. The only other oddity here is that the Inca's converted to Protestantism.

 

[Gunny123]

In a lot of the betas of played there have been large amounts of land not colonized. I think the AI is falling asleep and stops colonizing.

 

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None of the last several pics have showed up.

 

[Napoleon XIV]

Someone please kill Austria... They're just too big! Even in 1.07 they get to blob status but not to this degree!

 

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Now they show up fine.