Chapter 7: In search of dragons
We start off the update with an event, good for 5 prestige, bringing us to +59. Hurray? More importantly, I get my first conquistador and start exploring the Philippines. It’s a great base tax area, and a jumping off point to Australia and the South Pacific. I learn about some pirates a bit later.
The other option is a +20% to national tax for 10 years, but it would be a one-time cost of 143.51 ducats (and I presently have 33) and -50 to relations for Korea and Ming. If I got this event again, I’d say damn the consequences and choose the boost to national tax. I get a new military advisor -- +20% to colonial range. Not that exciting; I still don’t know where the New World is (except “east” – I’m pretty confident about that point). This happens in early 1542:
Free admin is pretty nice, but if I ever got a +1 stability event, I might pass out. I get MIL 8 in August 1542. Okinawa gets on board with Shintoism a bit later.
My new mission is “Colonize Cagayan”, which gets me a universal +5% to settler chance and +25 global settle increase for five years. Since Cagayan is 4 base tax, I was going to do it anyway. I learn in 1543 that Shiribeshi is going to produce Fish. Awesome. 1544 gives me another nice event.
Manchu calls me into a war against Ming. Sorry Ming, doesn’t look good for you.
I’m still hesitant to get involved in continental warfare, but that doesn’t mean I can’t blockade and sink ships.
Thus ends my military contribution to this war. I get admin tech 5 towards the end of the year, which lets me fire this decision in 1545.
A whole lot of nothing happens; I’m expanding my fleet hand over fist, earning money, and blockading Ming. That war ends in 1546.
Here’s what Asia looks like after that war.
I pick up another idea in 1546, and get my first national idea.
1547 gives me a pretty awesome event that gives me an opportunity I’ve been waiting for.
Shiribeshi finishes a bit later, and I start colonizing in the Philippines. I give my new explorer 21 ships and send him northeast. He returns in October with 8 ships, having only uncovered some sea zones. Ouch. My people are pretty angry and take it out on my Emperor.
The new Emperor kind of sucks, but that new heir…
Two images go through my head simultaneously – one of finally having a competent ruler; another of my heir spontaneously combusting. I know which is more likely; I’ve played way too much EU3.
About this time, I designate Brunei as a rival (which makes my rivals Korea and Brunei); seems like an easy place to expand, although I can’t get a CB on them… yet. Just to tease me, the game tells me the Emperor is sick.
This takes me back to my childhood for a moment. Like most Americans of a certain age, I played the Oregon Trail on the Apple IIe in school. It was an incredibly simple game, filled with shooting entirely too many buffalo and trying not to get your friends killed on the way to the west. Good times. Well, there was a sequel made about 25 years later or so, called (wait for it) The Oregon Trail II. I even bought the Collector’s Edition. It’s a fun little game, has a lot more to do, requires actual thought, etc.
Anyway, one of the things you could get is bitten by a rattlesnake. Now, in the original game, the solution to all illnesses is sleeping. Oregon Trail II gives you options! Most of the time, they’re pretty logical. However, one of them for the snakebite is making the person exercise. I knew this would kill the pioneer every time (after all, poison gets to the heart quicker with strenuous exercise), but I couldn’t help but pick it, just because the mental image of making them do jumping jacks or something was so hilarious. “Are you sure this is going to help, Doc? I mean, I can’t really walk or anything, but if you say so…”
I give you this brief digression partially out of nostalgia (I highly recommend Oregon Trail II, which should be incredibly cheap at this point), but partially because I wanted the Emperor to get bit by a snake and exercise. Sadly, that did not happen.
In 1550, to mark a momentous year, I sent a diplomat to Venice, just to see if there was any way in the lower hells I could get an alliance; sadly, it didn’t happen. 1551 sees a seven regiment revolt get quickly crushed. I send my three Early Carracks east with my explorer, again, to try to find the New World. I get a bunch of gold from an event, that goes to replacing the ships he loses. (The explorer also dies). However, I have conclusively proven that there is water farther to the east! Perhaps not one of the greatest scientific accomplishments in the history of our planet, but one that, I think, needed to be made. Manchu brings into me another war with Ming (now allied with Korea) in 1552. I sink the Ming fleet, then blockade. I get a marriage and alliance with Dai Viet in 1553 (no real reason, just wanted something to do). Korea beats Manchu, but Ming surrenders to Manchu.
Here’s the result.
Manchu ends their alliance with me, designating me a rival, causing me to chortle. I mean, Korea just beat the snot of you: am I supposed to be afraid of you? In 1555, I pick up another idea.
That next idea is a doozy -- +1 to my colonists, letting me colonize (**does some quick math**) two places at once!
Some more nothing happens for a while. The people of Kamchatka are not thrilled with my enlightened leadership, it would seem.
I’m only colonizing your stupid colony so I can stop losing ships for no reason! You can go on hunting seals or beavers or seal-riding beavers all you like, just let me dock ships there. They throw me out of Samtoy a bit later once I try that, leading me to immediately include some sort of international conspiracy. I decide to go back to Hokkaido (my mission was to turn Samtoy into a state, which failed, so now I have to colonize the Kuriles and Sakhalin).
Then nothing happens again until 1564. I get another free explorer and ship. He’ll probably sink too. It’s like telling them “go east until the water runs out” is too vague or something. I do get one more finished colony in Hokkaido and mil tech 9, but that’s it. However, I promise the next update will be more exciting. Why? Oh, just a hunch I have…
I do think you're on to something with your remarks about the New World, though.
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