Chapter 5: LITTLE PIG LITTLE PIG LET-ME-IN!
Let's start this chapter with an easy war. Kham and Sarig Yogir get attacked.
What can I say? Most of their land is given to my vassal Chagatai. Hormuz and Chagatai are integrating, by the way
The REAL target for this chapter is INDIA.
The situation: Malwa and Vinegar are allies, and Malwa is allied to Bengal also
The idea is to break that alliance block.
Koch is GUARANTEED by Bengal, and I do NOT make them full co-belligerent.
I call in my attack dog Jaunpur
I attacked NOW, because Malwa is attacking Orissa, with the help of Bengal and Vinegar. Another war is always a diversion for the AI
Bengal is movement locked into that big stack of Jaunpur...
And Jangladesh? We siege and loot their capital
Koch, our attack target, is in another war with Kachar to the east. Got to love a big mess
Vassal Persia is set in siege mode, and ordered to siege down fort in Koch. AI actually obeys such commands in province window SWIFTLY now.
Important tip: do NOT set subjects to 'supportive' mode if they have rebels in their nation. AI subject on supportive will completely negate rebels in their land. They won't even use 1k stack to resiege occupied provinces.. That can be good, or bad. But take into consideration.
Anyways, our attack dog is helping out our vassal Chagatai here, and Koch will be stomped in that fight also.
This is zoomed in example of the 'enhanced graphics' mod.
All in all, the result my various graphic mods give now is gorgeous, don't you agree? Only downside is that on max zoom, the new terrain gets a little pixelated. But can't have it all, I guess
The capital of Bengal falls, but their war enthousiasm is still high. Let's siege their other forts also then
Bengal gets baited to attack on their capital province.
That softened them up to accept annul alliance and 'gimme dosh' peace deal
Koch accepts peace, and our buddy Jaunpur is rewarded with a few provinces.
But what is important here, is that Jangladesh BORDERS Bengal now, which was the goal of this war from the start.
Jangladesh can now claim the province of Nasirabad. Soon we will have a CB on Bengal!
The map in Europe revealed
Muscovy is a super blob, that ate Lithuania, Golden horde, and most of the orthodox land near the Black Sea.
Teutonic order stomped Poland.
England ate a good part of France.
Austria got Burgundian inheritance.
Bohemia blobs, UGH.
@bbqftw :
*GULP* @ Muscovy army.. This is Muscovy who isn't even at full strength after expansion wars.. Austria is 20 over its forcelimit already and happy about it
The good news: Ottomans took QUANTITY and HUMANISM idea groups. Muscovy took defensive and religious.
WHO will you bet on folks
Castile and England both took exploration and expansion. I guess that is GOOD. France and Portugal are colonising also.
Jaunpur took QUANTITY. Vinegar took espionage. Err right.
AI with quantity idea group on very hard= trouble (enemy)/blessing (ally)...
Imagine Muscovy with quantity here...
Muscovy is going for the two provinces I left them in Nogai. I declare also, hoping Nogai would be in the west. Well, NOT
All in all, easy war
Jangladesh takes the entire state of Khazakstan, 7 provinces worth 47 development.
Meanwhile, Vinegar exhausted its manpower pool on an all-out war versus Bahmanis. Bahmanis is an OPM now.
Hmmmmmm.....
Time for WAR
This will be the hardest war so far in the campaign
The FIRST war against a major blob, or alliance block, is ALWAYS the hardest
I will take it slow here, and try not to mess up. Jaunpur and Gujarat help out, and together we try to BREAK India
Rudimentary battle plan: occupy capital of Malwa ASAP, while trying to siege the forts that protect the road to the capital of Vinegar.
The ai disagreed...
I must say, this war was a manoeuvring CHALLENGE. The AI is now LOT better at it. Stacks join in joint attack, sieges get abandoned if they are vulnerable to attack, and AI does no stupid stuff anymore.
Some folks might report otherwise in 1.17, but that must be due to bugs..
In my opinion, the ai is now LOT better at waging war
I got no clue if the 'very hard' difficulty has any direct influence on the ai behaviour of shuffling troops... But it does look that way.
They attack me CONSTANTLY
So I adapt, and play a defensive strategy, with surprise attacks on isolated stacks.
That worked well. But... They will be back. In FORCE
I moved the stacks in Malwa around, one province at a time.
Vinegar and Malwa are invading GUJARAT now.
A small Malwa stack tries to move into Mahadeo, and I outmanoeuver it!
After they sieged down the capital of Gujarat, The AI said 'enough is enough'
They attack my siege stack on Rewa Kantha. I throw in all I got. Jaunpur is movement locked to join the battle also.
This is TENSE
I think EVERY stack in the entire war joined that fight in the end
This is one of those battles that MAKES or BREAKS a war
I went to speed one, and watched.. Not sure if I was horrified, or fascinated
This battle lasted a LONG while. Almost 3-4 months...
Guess what? We are WINNING! Could have turned out entirely different though
If they had attacked in plains, with wider combat width, we would have LOST.
Rewa Kantha is considered as HILLS, and that saved my ass here.
Or, maybe I would have WON faster if it had been plains.
Now the AI had the time to throw it all in.
WHO KNOWS
What I can say for sure:
WE WON
We even managed to break their front line, and they took artillery casualties at some point.
We did NOT. Both sides of the war lost 30+k troops though
I now switched tactics.
Time for an offensive push towards the capital of Vinegar.
The Vinegar fort near Malwa capital fell, and now Jangladesh is sieging the fort in Raichur Doab.
This is the fort that protects their capital!
I placed the stacks with allies attached in the provinces NEAR it, and shouted
"YOUR MOVE!"
...and cursed right after, when they attacked in FORCE.
HOLD THE LINE!!!
HOOOOLD!!!!
We got this!
Good grief, VERY HARD difficulty is TENSE to play in
The road to their capital seems secured, as our siege is at 14%!
1k Stacks of Jangladesh occupy all unprotected provinces. Their capital is being sieged.
But HEEEERE THEY COME AGAIN!
My front line was collapsing here, those reinforcements need to come QUICK!!!
I started making mercs in all nearby occupied provinces, and threw them in also.
HOLD THE LINE!
REINFORCEMENTS ARE COMING!
HOOOLLLD!!!