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Kagemin

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Mar 8, 2014
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Introduction

I decided to try my hands at an AAR, since I'm really having a blast with this campaign (so far) and there doesn't seem to be much going on on the 1.12 patch yet in that regard.
Admittedly trying to make an AAR out of this came as a bit of a late thought, so especially the early game doesn't have many pictures. If there's an interest I'll try to make much more from now on though.


Once I read that Andalusia is going to be a formable nation in 1.12 I knw that I'd finally have to go for the Re-Reconquista. The small guys Granada has always fascinated me, but I never really got around to give them an honest try so far (partly because the most common strategy for a long time was to just run away).

1st part:
Towards a brighter future


Granada really doesn't start in an enviable position in 1444. The last remaining Muslim country on the Iberian peninsula, consisting of a measly 3 provinces. I knew I was in no position to fight the Christian Iberians head on, so I needed two things. Some friends, and if possible some more land to build up. The Maghreb nations all liked me, so for the greater good a tough choice had to be made. I allied Morocco and Tunis and started fabricating a claim in Tlemcen.

One year later Tlemcen's only allies was Touggourt, so I started a second claim and then declared war on Tlemcen. With the help of both Morocco and Tunis the war was a breeze. I peaced out Touggourt for money (Tunis sieged them, so I couldn't take any of their land), and took a total of 4 provinces for myself while vassalizing the rest of Tlemcen. With coring and annexation having gotten more expensive I figured I have to spread it between those two to not fall behind too much.

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Since Tlemcen didn't have any further claims on its own I took the province of Kasdir in addition to the others, started a claim on Mzab, and then gave Kasdir back to Tlemcen. Well worth the 10 prestige imo, since Mzab didn't have any allies and I could feed them to Tlemcen right away.

After subjugating Tlemcen I also was able to finally pick some rivals. I went with Portugal and Castille, further options were Aragon, Morocco, and Tunis. I decided to wait and see how things develop before picking a 3rd rival.
I also was able to ally the Ottomans after this, which soon became very valuable.
->Queue the first dow from Castille, backed up by Portugal. I sieged down Ceuta before Castille got Garnatah, and with the strength of alliances, and Castille taking some brutal attrition in the siege, that was enough to get out of the war with just conceding defeat. I was contemplating dragging it out and trying to get Ceuta already (it was worth 20% warscore o.o), but decided that it wasn't worth it compared to the massive war exhaustion I'd get from having my capital occupied all this time.

In the mean time my bad starting king finally kicked it, his successor was a 3/0/5. Not exactly good, but good enough. And even better, his heir was a 3/2/6, so hopefully I can get a lot out of that.

Since they got nothing from me the Iberians went for Morocco next, once the truces ran out. That was what I was waiting for, so I finally chose Morocco as my 3rd rival and with the support from Tunis (and my vassal Tlemcen, with what little they had) I declared war on Morocco. The Iberians didn't really do much at all, but between me and Tunis Morocco didn't really stand a chance anyways. And it meant that Morocco lost no territory in the other way, so more for me. :D

I got the north, Tlemcen the east, and in the south I released Sus. Morocco didn't manage to get any allies, so once the truce ran out it was rinse and repeat. Castille attacked me again somewhen between those wars, but it went exactly as their first attempt.
With Sus in the south I figured that Tlemcen's land would now be better off in my hands, so I started annexing them (for something like 900 diplo points... :eek:).

I tore down most of the forts I got, for how much they cost early on I figured I didn't really need more than one in Africa, at least for the time being.

And then finally came the opportunity I was waiting for. So far there was no chance for me to start expanding into Iberia, since Portugal was allied to both Aragon and Castille and I couldn't beat two of them (or even all 3) at once. I was already considering moving my capital to Africa and building a power base there, but then Castille attacked Aragon. Which called in Portugal, and between those 2 Castille got beaten back and I had my chance. I merced up and then attacked Castille. Their only ally at that point was Hungary, and they couldn't contribute much. Castille almost made a comeback when Aragon peaced out with only releasing Galicia, but with loans and some more mercs I still managed to beat Castille.

I took what I could from the Andalusian provinces, plus Asturias in the north. Again, I wanted to split the cost between coring and diplo-annexing vassals, so I released Leon in the hopes of feeding them northern Iberia.

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Portugal quickly vassalized Galicia, and Aragon vassalized Navarra.

Further to the south Tunis proceeded to annex both Touggourt and Djerid. With my capital staying in Europe, and Tunis being allied to the Ottomans as well, I figured I'll just let them be. :D

Since Castille lost the Historic Friends modifier with Portugal from being at war with them they proceeded to rival each other in their truce time, so Castille was pretty much alone now. I fed the rest of Morocco to Sus, and when the truce with Castille ran out I was strong enough to beat them 1 on 1 by now (with some generous use of mercs again. You really need those to not be out of manpower forever if you do some early warfare now). I got the remaining 2 provinces I needed from Castille to form Andalusia, and the rest of the warscore went to Leon.

Now it was just waiting for Aragon to get caught up in any of the Italian wars, and I could finally declare war on Portugal. Aragon still joined in, but they had enough troops in Italy that I could quicly siege their capital and get them out of the war.
Portugal got my capital in the meantime, but since it was now a 1 on 1 they didn't really stand a chance when Aragon was out. I got Algarve and Alentejo, the last two provinces I needed to from Andalusia (Aragon had too many allies to co-belligerize, and I didn't dare to keep them in the war long enough to get provinces from them).

Some (a little chaper, since I picked admin as my first idea group) cores later and it was done:
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Andalusia is restored, but that's only the first step. The next step will be to keep momentum and drive the Christians back. Thinks will get a little more difficult though, since France decided to ally both Aragon and Portugal. :eek:
 
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2nd part:
C'mon France, why you gotta be like that?
:mad:

As the newly (re)formed Andalusia my goals are clear. Keep the Re-Reconquista going, and see how far I can take it. So far it's been going far better than expected, but the 3-way alliance between Portugal, Aragon, and France promised to make things a bit more different. France isn't quite as scary as it could be, and hasn't really expanded much so far, but they didn't lose anything either. And base-France without autonomy is still a scary aspect for where I am right now.

At least Castille still is an easy enemy, right? Well, they were for one more war, then France allied them too. Yepp, France allied all my rivals, Portugal, Castille, and Aragon. I've been trying to ally them for a long time now, and got really close a couple times, but they really did what they could to keep that from happening. They rivalled my ally Tunis (if it was enough I'd gladly have abandoned Tunis for France, but it never got close enough for that), they allied all my rivals, and they never got weakened enough that I could overcome the strength of army modifier.
No chance of allying any other major power either, so I'll have to keep on relying on Tunis and Ottomans, which obviously is mostly a psychological effect.

During the time I waited for my next opportunity I also thought that it'd be time for Sus to get integrated. I sorta didn't think that through, since forming Andalusia put my capital further north distant overseas proved to be a thing now. Fully half of Sus' former territory got that penalty, luckily the poorly developed province of Mzab was the only other province affected by it, everything else still was close enough to my new capital. Oh well, even if I'm not getting much from the provinces, it at least freed up a relations slot...:rolleyes:

Fast forward maybe 15 years, and I was still waiting, and starting to grow impatient. France and Aragon getting caught up in a war in northern Italy was the so-far best opportunity, and even if they both were still in good enough shape to join the war I decided to go for it and attack Portugal.
The plan was similar to the first war against Portugal and Aragon: Siege Aragons capital asap and get them out of the war, then focus on Portugal. Hopefully I can get that done before France sends too many troops over...

The first part worked well, I occupied Valencia before Aragon could bring too many troops home, and even got a province (Alicante) out of it. But right when I turned around for Portugal, France finished her other war, and started to bring more and more troops over. My combined army (30k troops, in 2 stacks of 8/4/3, most of the infantry being mercenaries) held their ground for a while, but I knew I'd be in trouble when the French main stack would arrive.
To my surprise at this point the Ottomans decided to do more than just cheering me on from the sidelines and landed some units from the Gulf of Lion. At first that was nothing more than a distraction for the French, but the Ottomans kept going for it, and with me bringing over my army as well we managed to form a defensive line along the Pyrenees. It was not enough to outright beat the French in an open fight, but we sieged the forts of Bearn and Narbonne and dug in.

Suddenly I found myself with a much more welcome "problem". I might actually be able to take something from France, even if that meant a lot of AE outside the Iberian Peninsula. After much consideration I settled on the poorest of the French provinces available to me, Narbonne. A foothold is all I want for now, and it minimizes the AE in central Europe. That meant I couldn't get as much from Portugal directly, but I still got Madeira for myself and Galicia for my vassal Leon.
I released Toulouse from the province of Narbonne, and felt pretty happy with what I got from this war, even if it's only one province from each enemy after such a long and bloody war.

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Some recovery and consolidation later, and the truce with Castille ran out. Looks like they didn't manage to get any new allies this time. :D

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The 101% total warscore cost was a little annoying, since I hoped to take them out for good this time. But I guess it's for my AE, with what I took in the last war France should be below 30AE again when their truce with me runs out again. Better play it a littler slower and safer, than risk a huge coalition before I'm ready for it, right?

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Right...:oops:

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I guess Castille still exists somewhere overseas, but I couldn't resist the option of getting rid of them for good. Aragon, Portugal, and France will almost certainly start a coalition against me when the truces run out, but I already beat them before. And at least Aragon has a seperate timer, so that would be an option as well.

This is the overall situation in this part of the world, as well as my ideas so far:
s309p3.jpg


Admin felt neccessary for the reduced coring cost, especially with my national ideas giving me another -15% to that. I would have liked to get Influence already, but points-wise I had to go for a military idea, and this early on I liked Aristocracy best. Of course that means that later on I'll have an even bigger surplus of military points, but that's a problem I'm not really worried about.
It's also possible for me to ally Provence, but I'm not quite sure yet if they'd really help or just bleed warscore to France. Will have to decide on that when continue playing, this is where I am in this campaign right now (which also means that the next part may take a little while longer, I'm not the fastest player).
 
An early Iberian Wedding can still easily screw you over, so you need a bit of luck that Castille ends up at war with Aragon before it triggers. But from what I heard so far it seems to have gotten a little less likely, and Castille losing historic friendship with Portugal if they ever end up at war really hurts them badly.
It's the most fun campaign I've had in quite a while so far, here's hoping it'll continue to be. :)
 
3rd part:
Of Pyrrhic victories


The truce with Aragon ran out about 2 years before the ones with France and Portugal, but they allied both of them again. I was considering attacking them right away to avoid a possible coalition, but the only likely candidates for that would have been those exact 3 nations anyways. And with Portugal being allied only to Aragon at that point I decided it's better to wait for their truce timer to run out instead.
nm15wn.jpg


So much for that, should have known...
Still went for it, my plan was the same as last time again. Beat Portugal and Aragon before France has a chance to do much. If I can't beat France on my own and my allies decide not to do anything I'll try to peace out with the warscore from Portugal and Aragon, but I'd really like to feed my newest vassal (actually made them a March after a bit) Toulouse a bit.
First part worked perfectly well:
33db9xz.jpg

Second part not quite as good, but I figured with enough Mercs I might do it, that battle was pretty close.
iw2add.jpg


The Ottomans did really show up again, and with a good defensive battle we managed to win the first battle:
rw7xn8.jpg

In hindsight I should have been more worried that the battle was so costly despite defending in the mountains, but I was too confident and thought this was the turning point of the war.

The French just kept coming again
2q1b1b4.jpg


and again

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and again

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until I finally couldn't bring enough fresh Mercs over in time :(

vysbhu.jpg


Not gonna lie, these battles hurt. A lot. Even moreso since it was almost completely my fault, I really should have formed a defensive line in the mountains again, I should have been able to hold that until the French bleed dry.

Still, Aragonese war enthusiasm dropped to low and I peaced them out after this, before the war really starts turning against me.

rr8bpv.jpg


Luckily France got into another war, and even if it wasn't a big one it still occupied some of their attention.

2czq1e.jpg


I took what was left of my army and sieged Bearn when France was busy smashing the Italians, and peaced out.

qqv0aa.jpg


I got much less out of this war than I hoped, and I took some very heavy losses. Luckily the 3 nations I was at war with are the only ones that have any interest or ability to wage war on me, and as bad as that was, it was still a win.

With that in mind I figured that the biggest obstacle left to finishing the Re-Reconquista was my big, big vassal Leon.
13yjcys.jpg


Boy do I look forward to the hotfix making diplo annexation a bit cheaper... (I finsihed it before the hotfix comes out btw)
Normally I would probably have waited till I got the cost reduction from Influence ideas before annexing them, but my main goal is to just finish the Re-Reconquista. I'm not messing around in Africa anymore either because of that.
 
Wow you have really kicked those Iberians to the curb. Do you plan on continuing after the Re-Reconquista is finished?
I know what my first campaign in Common Sense will be :D
 
Wow you have really kicked those Iberians to the curb. Do you plan on continuing after the Re-Reconquista is finished?
Was thinking about it, but my sole goal for this campaign was the Re-Reconquista. And as much fun as that was, most of the motivation is gone now that I'm finished, so I'm rather starting something new (currently giving Ceylong a try).

That said here's the last part:
Wrapping things up


Another reason I did so poorly in the previous war was that I rushed to finish my Aristocracy ideas. Considering that this is a shorter campaign probably not the best idea, but old habits are hard to break... :oops:
20u90dg.jpg


I still needed some time to get ahead in military tech again, so I figured I need another strong ally, one that is close enough to actually help me reliably.
33acm0w.jpg

Found one. :D That should make sure that France won't be a problem anymore.

Meanwhile my vassal Leon thought that what they got of Iberia wasn't enough for them, so they started colonizing:
20fe3op.jpg


j9ybtf.jpg


2m4dkib.jpg

Yeah, sorry, can't help you with this one... :rolleyes:

While I was waiting for the truces to run out so that I could hopefully get everything in one fell swoop Aragon decided to make things a bit more difficult for me:
1427jon.jpg

Not the hardest of wars, but it means that I won't be getting too much out of it.

Portugal joined too after a while, but that only meant that I can take them out for good a bit earlier:
awcqdl.jpg

Under different circumstances I would have vassalized them (they had no colonial nations yet, and with a proper CB they would have been just below 100% warscore).

France didn't last much longer either
zklj86.jpg


which also was the end of the war for Aragon:
2lwvpdd.jpg


Would have been smarter to make a cheaper peace deal and take all these provinces with a CB on my own terms, but I was a bit impatient there (which made it take longer in the end...).

On the plus side Ottomans called me into a war against Venice, which also called in Aragon:
vijgg0.jpg


Not too surprisingly this triggered quite the coalition. Oh well, at least I have something to do now, while waiting for the truce with Aragon to run out again and annexing Leon.
2ly4vt0.jpg


Austria defending the poor Muslims against the rest of Christianity: :p
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Would just have felt wrong not to take anything from that war...
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The last war against Aragon was just mopping up, their only ally was Milan:
2zgukqp.jpg

And that's all of Iberia under my control, now it's just fast forwarding until I finally finish annexing Leon.

2r6z7gh.jpg

That's it, finally done. Was a lot of fun, definitely one of the must fun campaigns I had in a while. I played it rather slow (compared to how I usually play) because I was still getting used to the 1.12 changes, but it was still under 150 years. Also was a nice learning experience to get used to some of the changes in 1.12, I think I'll be having a longer campaign again next time. Currently leaning towards a Ceylon campaign for an extended Buddhist crusade.

In case anyone's interested, here are all the alternative Iberian province names:
2j6ptl.jpg
 
Very nice. Quite quick as well, I've never attempted this, but you certainly made me interested in trying. Good Job.
 
Very solid and fast play, especially with the hardest variation of the re-reconquista start (imo 'stay and fight' is still the most difficult though paradox throws you a bone with potential loss of portugal castile friendship).

Aggressive too, which is nice - did you declare your wars with the expectation that Ottomans would provide help? That was some good stuff against France.
 
I was fully prepared to try and ignore France as much as possible and try to get them out of the war asap if they decided to be annoying. That the Ottomans actually did help me allowed me to instead take something from France too after the wars, which was a nice little bonus.
 
No, they're still around in south America. I was considering vassalizing them so that they can colonize a bit for me, but in the end I just wanted their land in Iberia asap.
 
If you annex a European colonial power, what happens to their colony? Does it become free? What if they have a colony that hasn't become a colonial nation yet?
 
If the nation already has colonial nations they will become your subjects if you annex the "mother" country. If you vassalize it the colonial nations will break free instead.
And I think colonies count as normal provinces for full annexations, but I never actually tried what happens when you leave a nation with nothing but an ongoing colony. I'm guessing if they still have the money for it they can just finish the colony and continue from that.
 
If they become your subjects, is there anyway to force culture conversion? I don't think Common Sense has implemented that option. Only the religion conversion.
 
Wow, you're much better at this than I am! I am playing as Tunis right now (1.12, no Common Sense) to try and get the Sons of Carthage achievement.

I had some early success taking Malta and Sardinia from Aragon and making him release Naples, which also let me Westernize quite early (once I got far enough behind Aragon). I vassalized and diploannexxed all three of the minor states underneath Tunis as well as Fezzan and Tlemcen (after taking some provinces from them).

However, all of that was by leaning on the Ottomans to do all the heavy lifting. The Iberian Wedding did not fire, but it hardly mattered as now Castile owns all of the Peninsula including Portugal except for one province I took from Aragon in a second war.

I can't hope to beat Castile in a straight fight, they have Austria as an ally who just beat the Ottomans in a war (along with super-OP Poland) and its like 1700 at this point. I can't believe you accomplished your much harder achievement before 1500!
 
If they become your subjects, is there anyway to force culture conversion? I don't think Common Sense has implemented that option. Only the religion conversion.

Culture conversion can only be done to PU subjects. It costs some diplo power as well; I think it's like 2 points per development.