Cascade of Doom

[Methuen of Melnibone]

I had my most recent campaign ended this morning by a cascade of bad events - was curious what others have recently experienced ? (also inspired by the excellent England thread, in which the continental war all goes wrong, and the player goes off to America instead)

Is the cascade of doom the game's way of telling us "give it up, Johnny, it's already dead" ?

Mine - Byzantium - I have all of Greece, bits of Anatolia. Deep in debt having fought off Venice two years previous. Byzantium is made of unrest, zero manpower, debt, and devastation everywhere.

1. I get a comet, moving me to 1 stability
2. I get another comet, moving me to 0 stability (NASA would have loved this period)
3. My 5/4/6 ruler dies, and I get an empress regency 1/2/4 - (the heir is 3 years old) - moving me to -1 stability
4. I then get a PU over Muscovy, which triggers a succession war with France and Naples
5. I buy out of that war with loans & war reps, despite being already broke from wars with Turks, Hungary, Venice
6. I bankrupt the state as I now have more loans than possible to manage (-8 ducats per month) - figure I can fight some rebels & use the 5 years & existing truces to build mana & so on.
7. Rolling rebellions of 10-15k troops monthly is what I get (funny in a nation with 0 manpower, but still)
8. Bankruptcy + regency triggers the peasant's war, result in totals of +7 to national unrest, -3 stability
9. My heir comes of age, and has the 'extra unrest' modifier on coming-of-age
10. Rolling rebellions of more 6-10k stacks on top of the others already taking place
11. Due to the 'bankrupt' morale malus, my useless soldiers can't even beat peasants; I have no manpower to reinforce / no professionalism to debase for manpower.
12. The Turks get their brave on, and invade Anatolia.
13. Muscovy refuse to help due to their 100% liberty desire
14. Hit 'exit to menu'

In hindsight, persevering after the war with Venice that preceded all of the above was a poor choice; the sheer volume of mercs required to make up for the abysmal performance of the Byzantine army put me deep into the banker's pockets before the cascade of doom started, and with the state of the country I was never going to make any money / have a fun game out of it.

Anyone else have any fun (or frustrating) stories of this happening ?

 

[st360]

When will Ottoman enemies learn to take war reparations against Ottomans. You get 2 wrong culture wrong religion provinces less and 50 years worth of income.

 

[threetypesofcorn]

At step 1, always press Alt-F4

 

[Methuen of Melnibone]

Cascade of doom II ended my replacement Byzantium run - I've never seen a rolling coalition, Napleonic style, before now. Horrible thing to be on the receiving end of

1540 - I conquer most of Serbia (they survived due to Hungary imploding)
This triggers a coalition - Mamluks, Venice, Ottomans + some other minors out East
I beat them with my Russian & Austrian allies

1550 - Truces expire, the same coalition reforms, and attacks again
I beat them with my Russian allies, losing a minor province in the peace

1560 - Truces expire, the same coalition reforms, and attacks again
I beat them myself, losing most of Anatolia back to Ottomans
I take a few years off fighting to lower AE (it was near or over 100 for some coalition members)
My diplomats do the rounds of the coalition members, and Mamluks even take me off their rival list
Truces hold, and when they expire, the coalition doesn't reform

I think I'm out of the woods, so get the boys together again...

1577 - I take Durazzo (and some gold) off of Venice
The same coalition reforms again, and attacks again
I lose heavily, as all of my allies drop me, and loan-bribe my way out of losing more than some minor provinces

1587 - Truces expire, and the coalition starts building again
I look at my empty purse, low manpower, butter-soft Byzantine regulars, and shifty allies list...
*exit to menu*

 

[Republic of Mercury]

Cascade of doom II ended my replacement Byzantium run - I've never seen a rolling coalition, Napleonic style, before now. Horrible thing to be on the receiving end of
...

This seems completely different to what you talked about in the first post: There, you had some bad events, here you didn't manage your AE and got coalitioned because of it. Do you understand how coalitons work?

 

[Methuen of Melnibone]

This seems completely different to what you talked about in the first post: There, you had some bad events, here you didn't manage your AE and got coalitioned because of it. Do you understand how coalitons work?

Yes - What I'd never seen was a coalition, after being beaten quite badly, just reform & go again several times in a row. Obviously I'd gathered a lot more AE than I'd thought

 

[Republic of Mercury]

Yes - What I'd never seen was a coalition, after being beaten quite badly, just reform & go again several times in a row. Obviously I'd gathered a lot more AE than I'd thought

It does seem strange; a coalition lasting 47 years, when the only province you say you took in that time was Durazzo. I'm guessing there's some more going on that you didn't mention.

 

[Beagá]

As Austria:

1- Heir female
2- heir of heir ALSO female - bye bye throne
3- Emperors runs the empire into the ground
4- Emperor dies in the League war. HRE dissolved.

GG