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Those hordes are just Mental. I normally see the Timurids break up sooner in Death and Taxes due to all their non core provinces. I guess I'm too used to very easy difficulty. Great going but against those Timurids your doomed.
I'm Indian tech, so it was a -long- time before I got a troop advantage. My next troop type came at level 13 or 15? i don't recall exactly, and my research rate is 50%.
You'll see in my next updates what happened since I'm waaaaay past this in my game, just going to take a ton of updates to catch up.@tamius23: Yea, Pegu is going to be an interesting case, probably not what you're expecting.
@Thandros: Dude... You're not lying! The Tims and GH went Ape**** on the Eastern countries and OE.
Damn, I haven't seen Hordes that massive for quite some time. The Timurids especially - they've conquered most of Anatolia, though thankfully for you they haven't taken most of the good western provinces.
Lol! Yet. Add a yet on your sentence.
I can't post to many screenies in a 1 hour poeriod, so you'll see another update shortly.
1450-1455: Preperations for the next Timurid War
In the West, the Tims eventually took -ALL- of Turkey and most of Central Asia down through Judea and Mecca. Venice and England took over Greece and Bulgaria. The GH went as far West as Mecklenburg before revolters started undoing some of their progress. This didn't all happen at once, but most of it took place in the 1450-1500 period.
Durring the 5 year peace, I didn't expand other than absorbing Bahir. I let my WE cool down, let my manpower go up, and built forces over my troop limit in preperation for the next war vs the Mega-Tims.
I built manpower buildings in many provinces and considered my strategy for the next war. I needed to advance at least one province West along my entire front into the mountains. If I could achieve that before running out of manpower, getting too many revolts, and getting overrun, I'd peace out and be in better position for a third war with defendable terrain to smash the Horde armies in. With my armies in place ready to confront the giant doomstacks of the enemy, the timer was up and the war was on.
In the West, the Tims eventually took -ALL- of Turkey and most of Central Asia down through Judea and Mecca. Venice and England took over Greece and Bulgaria. The GH went as far West as Mecklenburg before revolters started undoing some of their progress. This didn't all happen at once, but most of it took place in the 1450-1500 period.
Durring the 5 year peace, I didn't expand other than absorbing Bahir. I let my WE cool down, let my manpower go up, and built forces over my troop limit in preperation for the next war vs the Mega-Tims.
I built manpower buildings in many provinces and considered my strategy for the next war. I needed to advance at least one province West along my entire front into the mountains. If I could achieve that before running out of manpower, getting too many revolts, and getting overrun, I'd peace out and be in better position for a third war with defendable terrain to smash the Horde armies in. With my armies in place ready to confront the giant doomstacks of the enemy, the timer was up and the war was on.
1455-1465 Timy War take 2, Generous donations to the war Gods.
I rushed into Sind and assaulted, occupying the province. I didn't send a colonist yet, unsure if I'd be able to hold it or not. As I set up waiting for the Timmy armies to show up, something randomly odd enough to warrant a screenshot happened.
Animist rebels had flipped a province from a disintigrating Bengal. The AI was going for the Ryukyu WC it seemed, and woe to anyone unable to fathom the genius behind their strategy!
Anyhow, back to the war. I had a long wait while the Tims were doing who knew what. I didn't dare advance too far leaving my troops unsupported and taking attrition when I didn't know the disposition of my enemies armies. Then out of nowhere, decending out of the mountains was a horrifying sight. The Vanguard of the Timurid army had arrived.
Ummm... crap! The spooky calm was suddenly replaced with bloodshed all across my western front. My amazing 5/6 general, the best one in my entire game, died in the relentless mass slaughter just a few years into his career. Over 100k died on both sides over the next year.
I had again been forced to use scorched earth on the plains where I couldn't fight back the Timur advance. In the mountains, the blood flowed down in rivers. I lost Lahore, but made the Tims pay dearly for it. I managed to retake it a short time later, and again it became a killing ground subject to relentless attacks. I was able to catch some of his stacks unsupported and wipe them out. You can see with the screenshots how my manpower was in decline.
Another brutal year of heavy losses for both sides and still I hadn't taken an inch of ground. I did have colonists building up in Sind, but the casualties I suffered to buy time for this could not be sustained for ever. The constant flow of Timurid stacks was beat back repeatedly, but once in their turf they quickly regained strength and came back full force. I tried wiping out stacks whenever I could, but I had to be careful to not send pursuit forces into the path of newly arriving stacks of enemy regiments.
Then a bit of luck. The Timurid Khan died, spawning revolts all over his country. This was good and bad, as some of those revolters were spilling over into Vijayanager provinces.
It gave me a short relief from the arrival of his replacement doomstacks however, and I took advantage of it, capturing several more provinces while he put down revolts. Eventually, his forces started to come back into theater and tried to undo my gains.
Huge stacks collided along the front for several years without much change except my rising WE. I theorized at this point that when Venice and England had taken out the OE in Greece, Tims had left a portion of their army there in a continuous attempt to cross, because they were now at war with those two nations. Eventually they made peace and sent more troops to their Eastern front... which was me. Being Hindu, my yearly colonists were just a trickle, even with a large Horde front. I sent colonists out to all the occupied territory and tried to keep it from falling into Tim control. I continued smashing his armies where I could, making him take huge losses in mountain provinces when able, and running away when I was outmatched by an overwhelming force.
Finally, after 10 long years of war and an unknown but extremely high number of dead people later, I peaced out with a foothold in the mountains, which I hoped would make my next war much easier.
My new boundaryline zoomed out looked like this:
I know it looks like I could have kept going, but with only about 1.65 colonists per year at that point, it was taking several years for each province, and my WE just couldn't hold out, revolts were becomming an increasingly big problem.
I rushed into Sind and assaulted, occupying the province. I didn't send a colonist yet, unsure if I'd be able to hold it or not. As I set up waiting for the Timmy armies to show up, something randomly odd enough to warrant a screenshot happened.
Animist rebels had flipped a province from a disintigrating Bengal. The AI was going for the Ryukyu WC it seemed, and woe to anyone unable to fathom the genius behind their strategy!
Anyhow, back to the war. I had a long wait while the Tims were doing who knew what. I didn't dare advance too far leaving my troops unsupported and taking attrition when I didn't know the disposition of my enemies armies. Then out of nowhere, decending out of the mountains was a horrifying sight. The Vanguard of the Timurid army had arrived.
Ummm... crap! The spooky calm was suddenly replaced with bloodshed all across my western front. My amazing 5/6 general, the best one in my entire game, died in the relentless mass slaughter just a few years into his career. Over 100k died on both sides over the next year.
I had again been forced to use scorched earth on the plains where I couldn't fight back the Timur advance. In the mountains, the blood flowed down in rivers. I lost Lahore, but made the Tims pay dearly for it. I managed to retake it a short time later, and again it became a killing ground subject to relentless attacks. I was able to catch some of his stacks unsupported and wipe them out. You can see with the screenshots how my manpower was in decline.
Another brutal year of heavy losses for both sides and still I hadn't taken an inch of ground. I did have colonists building up in Sind, but the casualties I suffered to buy time for this could not be sustained for ever. The constant flow of Timurid stacks was beat back repeatedly, but once in their turf they quickly regained strength and came back full force. I tried wiping out stacks whenever I could, but I had to be careful to not send pursuit forces into the path of newly arriving stacks of enemy regiments.
Then a bit of luck. The Timurid Khan died, spawning revolts all over his country. This was good and bad, as some of those revolters were spilling over into Vijayanager provinces.
It gave me a short relief from the arrival of his replacement doomstacks however, and I took advantage of it, capturing several more provinces while he put down revolts. Eventually, his forces started to come back into theater and tried to undo my gains.
Huge stacks collided along the front for several years without much change except my rising WE. I theorized at this point that when Venice and England had taken out the OE in Greece, Tims had left a portion of their army there in a continuous attempt to cross, because they were now at war with those two nations. Eventually they made peace and sent more troops to their Eastern front... which was me. Being Hindu, my yearly colonists were just a trickle, even with a large Horde front. I sent colonists out to all the occupied territory and tried to keep it from falling into Tim control. I continued smashing his armies where I could, making him take huge losses in mountain provinces when able, and running away when I was outmatched by an overwhelming force.
Finally, after 10 long years of war and an unknown but extremely high number of dead people later, I peaced out with a foothold in the mountains, which I hoped would make my next war much easier.
My new boundaryline zoomed out looked like this:
I know it looks like I could have kept going, but with only about 1.65 colonists per year at that point, it was taking several years for each province, and my WE just couldn't hold out, revolts were becomming an increasingly big problem.
I assume it's not going to be that way for long but at least for the moment that's a really tidy border you've got there
I assume it's not going to be that way for long but at least for the moment that's a really tidy border you've got there
'Eventually' I got a tech advantage, but like I sad earlier, Indian tech group, so it was a long wait for better units. And my border clenliness has had it's ups and downs.
1465-1470: 5 years of spring cleaning.
My King had died a few years earlier, leaving me in a Regency. Right after the Tim war ended, my heir took the throne.
As funny as it was to have Ryukyu next door, I decided I was going to snag that province from them because it was simply the right thing to do.
After a quick check I saw I still needed one more province from Orissa to form Hindustan. They were at war with several countries to the East, so I offered a beaten-up Assam an alliance, and they agreed. Ceylon had reformed on the continent somehow, and I used alliance CB to start another war with Orissa, who'd expanded a bit Eastward. This was the peace deal they accepted:
That shored up my Eastern front just in time for me to move all my forces back to the western front. Right on schedule, Timmy war #3! Whatever else can be said about the hordes, they are a very punctual group of barbarians.
My King had died a few years earlier, leaving me in a Regency. Right after the Tim war ended, my heir took the throne.
As funny as it was to have Ryukyu next door, I decided I was going to snag that province from them because it was simply the right thing to do.
After a quick check I saw I still needed one more province from Orissa to form Hindustan. They were at war with several countries to the East, so I offered a beaten-up Assam an alliance, and they agreed. Ceylon had reformed on the continent somehow, and I used alliance CB to start another war with Orissa, who'd expanded a bit Eastward. This was the peace deal they accepted:
That shored up my Eastern front just in time for me to move all my forces back to the western front. Right on schedule, Timmy war #3! Whatever else can be said about the hordes, they are a very punctual group of barbarians.
Thanks.
I gotta say, I think these Timmy wars were maybe the most difficult of any wars I've had in any EU game, even worse than fighting Burgandy as a 2PM Holland which I thought was pretty freakin hard at the time.
That's a horrific Timurids! Good luck driving them back! Now you have the mountains you can grind them down.
LOL well by the time I got there, it was pretty odd, but you'll have to wait to know how.
It looks like a bad painting made by someone on LSD. With no human intervention in Europe, the AI gets crazy wierd to say the least. Everytime I've checked, it was more mesed up than the last time and where my current game is in the mid 1600's, it's a total mess.
Exactly why I needed to take those hills.
Now lemme get an update ready!Edit: On an earlier topic, it was lvl 15 for a cav upgrade and lvl 18 for the first infantry upgrade. Before that, Indian tech units are spearchuckers.
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At least you've got good land tradition from all the war.
When the time comes you can blockade their coasts and get their WE up a bit too.
When the time comes you can blockade their coasts and get their WE up a bit too.
Still typing update in another window, but Indian tech group 100% invested in land, It was somewhere in the mid 1500's my naval tech went over 5 lol.
Ah, no blockades for you then!
Remember that cavalry gets penalties in mountains, so even with your crappy infantry you will have an edge occupying those mountain redoubts.
Remember that cavalry gets penalties in mountains, so even with your crappy infantry you will have an edge occupying those mountain redoubts.
1470-1490 Oodles of death for a few more hills!
-Side note: The next 20 years was much like before but the Horde armies came and went in 'pulses' sometimes being around 100k strong, sometimes not having a single army in theater. This was due to their expansion in the west which I wasn't really aware of until later. My expansion was very limited by my small number of colonists and the occasional destruction of a colony in progress by the horde. Durring this time the Tims reached their Apex, owning everything from Turkey down into the Mams, taking all of the Arabian Peninsula except for Oman, who they vassalized. GH seemed to have stable borders much the same as in the last world map, but they would get much bigger in the 1500's before eventually starting to collapse. This strange push by the hordes would create a very odd looking Christian and Muslim world later on. Now for the update!
With no enemy on the border, I sent stacks across to start sieging. soon after, the Horde armies arrived, heading straight for my troops. I quickly moved units to reinforce the siege stacks.
More and more Tims started showing up and this time stayed in fewer larger stacks, driving me back into Vijayanager territory. I made them pay with soldiers for every inch of ground I gave back, fighting them from hill to hill on the defensive until his armies were spent. Then I'd surge forward with fresh stacks, wiping his troops out or driving them off to regain strength. This back and forth went on for some time with my forces generally having the upper hand in most of the fights, but never being able to do much with their gains because of the enemy having endless reinforcements.
A few years into the war I was blessed with yet another regency. It came durring one of the mysterious slow periods where all the Tims would just march off for a few months only to return with full force again. I think that rebels spawning someplace were the cause of this mas troop reaction, but I'm only speculating. I used those slow times to kill rebels and regain strength. By this point I'd already hit the bottom of the manpower pool, a very very bad thing against the Tims.
Soon after, my heir took the throne while the Timmy Khan died. This set his country ablaze with revolts, but their rediculously large army had no trouble beating down the pretender and getting back to business.
A year after my new King took the throne he produced an heir. This shot shows the two armies in conflict amidst rebels all over when that happened. I'd had my own rebel problems, so it was nice to see him suffer a bit for a year or two.
As the war continued, my WE and several stab hit events had produced many revolts. My economy was having a rough time with a fair amount of minting to support a large army and replacement stacks for those that were lost. I did manage to finally create a propper fleet on the second time getting the mission, and I'd be glad later to have such a large navy to hold off invaders from the East. Look at my manpower in this screenshot, lol, after years of being understrength it was starting to recover slightly. I got dangerously low for a while when I tried to be too agressive early in the war.
I had to manage my armies -very- carefully durring this war. On several occasions small mistakes cost me 10-20k troops because of a minor error in timing or location. I was making progress and took another province, but colonization was a slow process and the control of provinces could change quickly with the arrival of fresh enemy stacks replacing old ones that were lost.
The hills were definitely my greatest weapon and the only thing keeping my armies from caving. If I hadn't taken that first set of mountains in the 2nd war, I think I would have had a -very- rough time in the 3rd war. He had more troops and replaced lost stacks more quickly this time around, and while they'd often vanish for a few months, they'd always come back very strong and get busy making up for lost time. Even with the short absences of his forces I wasn't able to do much because I was still only getting a trickle of colonists. No NI's, no religious bonus, the only colonists I got were from the horde bonus plus a COT.
Having backed off my earlier attempt to 'push hard', my manpower recovered and I was again sticking to my first strategy: Let them fight me in the mountains and reinforce my armies there once the fight got started, then use my fresh reinforcement stacks to chase defeated retreating stacks.
Many many years went by and I managed to colonize a few more provinces. Now I had a strategic advantage for the first time with my troops holding almost all the mountains. I was intending to keep grinding forward but the Tims suddenly made peace on all fronts except for their eastern border. Then came the time of pain! An insane wave of forces slammed into my border army. Using all my tricks, all my defenses, and all of my armies, I was driven back by sheer volume. This was the Timmy Apex moment where they were at their largest having advanced on all fronts except mine, and now they were at peace with everyone except me. The grind was intense. I was too focussed to remember to take screenshots while the fighting was going on. Seriously over 100k troops were on my border.
I killed a few stacks and delivered huge casualties, but fresh stacks kept pouring in and pouring in. After inflicting heavy losses, my armies would start to break and be pulled back. Fresh stacks pushed forward and all my reserves were quickly out of morale as well. He drove in relentlessly, and much of my army was lost over a year or two fighting them non-stop. My manpower was exhausted and all I could do was pull back my remaining troops while his forces layed siege. His army took a horrible beating dropping low enough to promp some vassal and tribute giving nations to restart their wars. At that point I had buildt up a huge warscore from earlier fighting, so was able to peace out. The two armies in thise screenshot... all that I had left on the border.
I used the next 'rest' period to do some mini-warmongering which seemed almost funny after fighting on such a large scale for so long. I was having excellent luck on my missionaries! They were doing their job faster than I've ever seen missionaries succeed before. Even ones with low% seemed to finish in 5 years or less, which was great considering how many revolts I'd been dealing with the entire game to this point.
Eat Delhi. Sweet! War was over so fast it doesn't warrant any further discusion.
Next was Punjab. Same deal as Delhi, but they were allied with Kashmir who I had a core on from a boundary dispute. Two more provinces as fast as my armies could walk over and assault them.
And that... is where I'll leave this update.
-Side note: The next 20 years was much like before but the Horde armies came and went in 'pulses' sometimes being around 100k strong, sometimes not having a single army in theater. This was due to their expansion in the west which I wasn't really aware of until later. My expansion was very limited by my small number of colonists and the occasional destruction of a colony in progress by the horde. Durring this time the Tims reached their Apex, owning everything from Turkey down into the Mams, taking all of the Arabian Peninsula except for Oman, who they vassalized. GH seemed to have stable borders much the same as in the last world map, but they would get much bigger in the 1500's before eventually starting to collapse. This strange push by the hordes would create a very odd looking Christian and Muslim world later on. Now for the update!
With no enemy on the border, I sent stacks across to start sieging. soon after, the Horde armies arrived, heading straight for my troops. I quickly moved units to reinforce the siege stacks.
More and more Tims started showing up and this time stayed in fewer larger stacks, driving me back into Vijayanager territory. I made them pay with soldiers for every inch of ground I gave back, fighting them from hill to hill on the defensive until his armies were spent. Then I'd surge forward with fresh stacks, wiping his troops out or driving them off to regain strength. This back and forth went on for some time with my forces generally having the upper hand in most of the fights, but never being able to do much with their gains because of the enemy having endless reinforcements.
A few years into the war I was blessed with yet another regency. It came durring one of the mysterious slow periods where all the Tims would just march off for a few months only to return with full force again. I think that rebels spawning someplace were the cause of this mas troop reaction, but I'm only speculating. I used those slow times to kill rebels and regain strength. By this point I'd already hit the bottom of the manpower pool, a very very bad thing against the Tims.
Soon after, my heir took the throne while the Timmy Khan died. This set his country ablaze with revolts, but their rediculously large army had no trouble beating down the pretender and getting back to business.
A year after my new King took the throne he produced an heir. This shot shows the two armies in conflict amidst rebels all over when that happened. I'd had my own rebel problems, so it was nice to see him suffer a bit for a year or two.
As the war continued, my WE and several stab hit events had produced many revolts. My economy was having a rough time with a fair amount of minting to support a large army and replacement stacks for those that were lost. I did manage to finally create a propper fleet on the second time getting the mission, and I'd be glad later to have such a large navy to hold off invaders from the East. Look at my manpower in this screenshot, lol, after years of being understrength it was starting to recover slightly. I got dangerously low for a while when I tried to be too agressive early in the war.
I had to manage my armies -very- carefully durring this war. On several occasions small mistakes cost me 10-20k troops because of a minor error in timing or location. I was making progress and took another province, but colonization was a slow process and the control of provinces could change quickly with the arrival of fresh enemy stacks replacing old ones that were lost.
The hills were definitely my greatest weapon and the only thing keeping my armies from caving. If I hadn't taken that first set of mountains in the 2nd war, I think I would have had a -very- rough time in the 3rd war. He had more troops and replaced lost stacks more quickly this time around, and while they'd often vanish for a few months, they'd always come back very strong and get busy making up for lost time. Even with the short absences of his forces I wasn't able to do much because I was still only getting a trickle of colonists. No NI's, no religious bonus, the only colonists I got were from the horde bonus plus a COT.
Having backed off my earlier attempt to 'push hard', my manpower recovered and I was again sticking to my first strategy: Let them fight me in the mountains and reinforce my armies there once the fight got started, then use my fresh reinforcement stacks to chase defeated retreating stacks.
Many many years went by and I managed to colonize a few more provinces. Now I had a strategic advantage for the first time with my troops holding almost all the mountains. I was intending to keep grinding forward but the Tims suddenly made peace on all fronts except for their eastern border. Then came the time of pain! An insane wave of forces slammed into my border army. Using all my tricks, all my defenses, and all of my armies, I was driven back by sheer volume. This was the Timmy Apex moment where they were at their largest having advanced on all fronts except mine, and now they were at peace with everyone except me. The grind was intense. I was too focussed to remember to take screenshots while the fighting was going on. Seriously over 100k troops were on my border.
I killed a few stacks and delivered huge casualties, but fresh stacks kept pouring in and pouring in. After inflicting heavy losses, my armies would start to break and be pulled back. Fresh stacks pushed forward and all my reserves were quickly out of morale as well. He drove in relentlessly, and much of my army was lost over a year or two fighting them non-stop. My manpower was exhausted and all I could do was pull back my remaining troops while his forces layed siege. His army took a horrible beating dropping low enough to promp some vassal and tribute giving nations to restart their wars. At that point I had buildt up a huge warscore from earlier fighting, so was able to peace out. The two armies in thise screenshot... all that I had left on the border.
I used the next 'rest' period to do some mini-warmongering which seemed almost funny after fighting on such a large scale for so long. I was having excellent luck on my missionaries! They were doing their job faster than I've ever seen missionaries succeed before. Even ones with low% seemed to finish in 5 years or less, which was great considering how many revolts I'd been dealing with the entire game to this point.
Eat Delhi. Sweet! War was over so fast it doesn't warrant any further discusion.
Next was Punjab. Same deal as Delhi, but they were allied with Kashmir who I had a core on from a boundary dispute. Two more provinces as fast as my armies could walk over and assault them.
And that... is where I'll leave this update.