I can't see the images you posted. Does anyone else have trouble seeing the images?
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Imageshack has problems with content delivery on some german ISPs. So Avindian: For gods sake, use something like Google Drive or Dropbox (both allow hotlinking, provide decent space for nothing, and have - unlike non-paid imageshack - infinite data retention).
Glad to have you along! I really regret never playing as a daimyo in EUIII, so I'm glad to rectify that in EUIV.
Thanks very much for the advice! I'm sure I'll need it.
I have never given much consideration to playing as a Japanese faction, let alone one of the Asiatic nations in-game, except the Timurids for the sole purpose of founding the Mughals to whom I am very fond of. So watching you as Japan Avindian, and perhaps giving me ideas if I ever get around to starting a game with them, should be much interesting!
Cheers!
I hope you enjoy it!
I'm glad to see that Japan won the vote. Well don't worry about making mistakes. That just makes things much more interesting.
I certainly hope it does, and glad to have you along!
I think it's that we all "love to hate?"
BTW congrats on the grant
Your second comment made up for your first.
Glad to have you!
Subbed! Oh and that Date pun...jesus man.
I'm no Fryegecko, but I would also expect many, many more puns to come.
Great to have you aboard!
Welcome to the AAR!
Not sure what gave you problems, Great One -- perhaps shierholzer is correct? And, for the record, I pay for Imageshack (it's remarkably inexpensive). If the images do become a serious problem, I'll consider swapping hosts to Google Drive or Dropbox, but this is the first I've heard of any problems for my readAARs.
Update is still targeted for tomorrow!
This looks interesting! I don't have EUIV, and I'm curious to see the randomized new world. I guess it'll be a while until you get there though.
A new story starts
Will Avindian prevail
Only time will tell
Will Avindian prevail
Only time will tell
Also you must have ships since you have a force limit of 4/5 and your treasury is paying naval upkeep.
Japan will try to smack you down if you grow to around half the country, so make sure your army is big enough to defeat them before you get there. Also, take out Takeda as soon as you can - their province has gold and they'll be a huge pain in the neck if they live for long.
Unless it was changed in 1.5, you can release daimyos you conquered as your own vassal. This will keep you small enough that Japan doesn't get the special CB. Just make sure not to release a very small one that borders Japan or they might end up forcing you to fight your own vassal.
Actually, that's caused by a mechanism protecting Imageshack from siterips. If one specific IP causes to many picture accesses in a given time, it get's blocked from hotlinking for some time. Since IPv4 is endly (and already 'sold out' btw) some ISPs started to send their (private) customers via transparent proxy's - up to ~1.5 million physical people per public IP.
Ignoring naval force limits is unbelievably cheap in EU4.
Count me in
Superb!
That much is true, but you are welcome to join regardless.
Great!
I've briefly toyed with doing an AAR entirely in haiku -- this will not be that AAR, however. It turns out the navy was hiding in one of my ports.
Wise words re: Takeda, and welcome aboard!
Thanks for the advice!
(Nods blankly at the first part of your comment.) As to the second, I agree 100% and I won't be doing it, although I don't think Davout was suggesting I do so, merely pointing out that I had a fleet, but in the update I said I didn't.
Update should be out in a few minutes. I do hope you'll all forgive me, but my first playthrough I got annexed when pretty much everybody jumped me at once. It turns out that the EUIV AI is much better about allies uniting forces, which I knew from past experience but forgot. :blush: In any event, I assume nobody wanted an AAR that said "turns out I got annexed. THE END."
Chapter 1: Betraying your allies for fun and profit
After the early game flurry of alliances, I end up with Hosokawa, Imagawa, and Ouchi. These are pretty reasonable allies to have, even if Ouchi is kind of far away. I’ve also got a diplomat working on improving relations with Ming; just in case Japan does stab in me the back before I can stab them in the back, it would be good to have a friend outside of Japan. I make my ruler a general and run into the problem that we all remember so “fondly” from EUIII: the +2 fire general before the invention of firearms!
Still, we have an army of 5000 loyal soldiers. Date is allied with Ouchi and Yamana, who are both conveniently far away. On 17 August 1445, I declare war, and get some wonderful news.
I didn’t even know it was possible for allies to side against the defender in EUIV, but here is living proof. I’m certainly not complaining! With no real allies, I overrun Date pretty quickly.
For the low price of 30 admin power, I start them on the process to core-hood. In April 1446, I hire an advisor and start trying to improve relations with Takeda.
Note to self: Conquer Ouchi later. The silver lining here is that Takeda is Hosokawa’s only ally, although I get a stab hit because I had to betray one ally or another. Once this war begins, I fire my advisor to save cash (which is why I didn’t include any info on him). I also spend some admin to put me back at -1 stability. Some rebels show up, just to keep things from getting boring, I guess.
The three regiments are pretty easily defeated. I decide to start sucking up to Korea at this point too, even though I expect them to be a great target for conquest in another 50 or 60 years (maybe sooner). A bunch of nobles get angry about that (or something).
I can’t say I’m thrilled with losing 10% of my national modifier, but the alternative was losing a big bucket of prestige. In October, Takeda proves exactly why I was right to try to become their friend.
But hey, I finished my mission! I now choose “Build an Army for Our Nation.” 1446 closes with a bit of good news, thankfully.
I also have enough admin to give myself 0 stability. The guy from Ming has maxed out the diplo relations there, so I send him off to Yamana, who is one of the more powerful nations at the other end of the island. I also get a nice event to begin 1447:
I pay 10.85 ducats and 20 military power for -5% to admin technology and diplo technology until my ruler dies. Not a bad deal at all! Mutsu cores at the end of 1447. By March of 1448, my army is rebuilt and ready for action, so I send it off into Kai, the only province of Takeda. Visions of annexation are dancing in my head. My next mission will be Improve our Prestige, better known as “if you get 50 prestige, you get +1 to stab”. Imagawa and Hosokawa sign a peace in May 1448 for 50 ducats, reducing the ranks of our allies by one.
Here’s the overall situation.
My thinking is simple: if I can take their province before the army of Takeda gets here, I’ll win. Hatakeyama declares war on Shiba in August. To keep me from getting complacent, I get the Plague in 1448 in Echigo, which cuts goods produced by 10% (I couldn’t afford the 50 ducats and that’s a lot of loans). Perhaps because he’s a fan of the plague (and honestly, who isn’t?), I get a Ronin the next month.
Gaining an advisor I can’t afford to pay for would be nearly useless, and 2 ducats is only slightly more useful. I do get more good news a week later.
50 diplo for .5 inflation?! Yes, please! My heart soars as I see Takeda busy on the other end of the island. Everything is coming up Milhouse!
I begin to get ambitious here – after all, Shiba just entered another war, and they’ve got the only other province on my end of the island. Since I’m in a war with Ouchi as an ally right now, they couldn’t betray me even if they wanted to. It’s now January 1449, and nothing of consequence is hap—
SIEGE FASTER, ARMY! I have the strangest feeling I forgot something about the army I rebuilt…
Oh yeah. That. A general. I’m pretty sure I would have lost anyway, but not been completely destroyed. That’s okay – I have a new plan: to fabricate a claim on Shiba to take the province of Dewa. All I need to do is end my existing war:
Given what I could have lost (a province or two to Takeda, certainly), I can live with that. Weirdly, immediately after I sign the peace, they want to be my allies. Uh, okay?
I buy off some war exhaustion and get ready to rebuild my army (again) to fight Shiba. It’s now 1450. Man, that is one heck of an ouchie, Ouchi!
On top of that, I declare war on Shiba. Their army feels suicidal and throws itself at me, to be completely destroyed. (It’s only a couple of hundred guys, but still.) This fires in October of 1450.
That’s funny: the Japanese have never heard of “Obscurantism.” Or “The Enlightenment.” Or “Europe.” Eh, what can you do?
With no real friends, Shiba is defeated and another province is added.
I pay 32 admin to start the coring there, and then save and quit.
A few setbacks in that update, but nothing too horrible. I am well on my way, I think. I did have a couple of questions for my more experienced readers:
1) Is there any way to unite Japan peacefully, or is war the only option?
2) Would going after Takeda and annexing it be enough to push Japan over the edge and give them the CB? I’d settle for puppeting Takeda, but it seems I can’t.
I’m thinking of going with a colonial idea for my first group (which I probably won’t get for some time), if for no other reason than to pick up Hokkaido. In any event, the next few years will probably be spent burning off AE. Next update should come sometime next week!
Nice update, it is wise that you start conquering the north as it gives you just a mere 1 front to fight on! Banzai!
Well, the fact that they haven't heard of Europe, enlightenment or even obscurantism proves that the obscurantism is working!
I suspect you weren't paying your army. Either that, or the RNG hates you even more than usual.
Considering that your heir has a 6 mil but only 3 dip I would go for a military idea, also because mil points tend to be used less for other things in my experience, so you would be able to upgrade it quickly. I would recommend plutocracy, but the first step on that ladder isn't terribly useful for a poor nation.
I suspect you weren't paying your army. Either that, or the RNG hates you even more than usual.
Considering that your heir has a 6 mil but only 3 dip I would go for a military idea, also because mil points tend to be used less for other things in my experience, so you would be able to upgrade it quickly. I would recommend plutocracy, but the first step on that ladder isn't terribly useful for a poor nation.
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@Willum: Daimyos can't get Plutocracy.
It will probably take more or less 25 years until the first idea comes. Probably better to wait and see. Though Exploration is not a bad idea. Being able to try and block off Russia or any of the other colonizers is not bad.
2) Japan gets their special CB to annex you when you have at least 10 provinces. You can annex Takeda and then release them as vassal, but this would allow Japan to fabricate a claim on it and then go to war with it, and there's nothing you can do about it (you would either be called into the war to fight your own vassal, or you won't be in the war at all if you're already at war with other daimyos). Date would probably be better to release.
It will probably take more or less 25 years until the first idea comes. Probably better to wait and see. Though Exploration is not a bad idea. Being able to try and block off Russia or any of the other colonizers is not bad.
1) For a Daimyo, war is the only option. At least until you take over Japan and become Shogun yourself. Keep an eye out for any daimyo Japan is annexing and eat the before they can finish. And of course before Japan eats you.
2) Japan gets their special CB to annex you when you have at least 10 provinces. You can annex Takeda and then release them as vassal, but this would allow Japan to fabricate a claim on it and then go to war with it, and there's nothing you can do about it (you would either be called into the war to fight your own vassal, or you won't be in the war at all if you're already at war with other daimyos). Date would probably be better to release.
Not a perfect start, but a good one. And like Derahan said, it's good that you're limiting you're potential fronts. Some of the southern Daimyos have some decent transport capabilities, but I seem to recall that Hosokawa has the dominant fleet.
I think it would have been funny if you had posted a picture of you being annexed.
Seems like you're nicely cementing your control of northern Japan.
Seems like you're nicely cementing your control of northern Japan.
You seem to be nicely consolidating your grip over a significant portion of Japan. Looking forward to seeing how you eventually come out on top in this struggle.