Ming with ambitions on the Northern border is concerning. However I think that this went very well over all.
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The balance of religions helps me a lot for sure. If all nations would be Hindu, like their people (provinces), I would either be forced to sit on my hands or facing a serious coaltiion. The powers seem to be in a balance too, that is true. Bengal eat up Orissa early, but that's about it. Vijy, Bahmanis and Jaunpur have done very little to nothing in the 40 years since game start.
Ming with his troop numbers is always scary. He is just three provinces away, but I have Chagatai as a buffer between us.
I don't think Ming is a direct threat to me, but I will keep watching him and report about.
Hindu Minors
Hindu Minors
Indian provinces: Mughals 42, Multan 4 = in total 46/255 for THoT
Some changes: I have disinherited Shir Shah and got a Padishah Begum (Queen) after a RM from Jaunpur, Bibi Raji (5/4/5). She is very good, way better than her husband. Wouldn't be bad to have her as regent. Diplomatically I canceled the alliance with Transoxiana and could arrange new ones with Vijayanagar and the Ottomans. Seems, the Mughals are big enough to be taken seriously by major nations now. Also I set Bahmanis as new rival.
Jaunpur has revoked his guarantee of Limbuwan and instead guaranteed my neighbor Doti. Hmm, is my BFF trying to prevent my expansions?
Next war, in the Himalaya region. Dang is the yellow OPM. His ally Kathmandu, the 2PM west of Limbuwan, brings in Jharkhand. My army is not in position, right? Well, my troops are still busy with rebel suppression in Central India. Coring of four provinces from the last war with Delhi is also not completed yet.
I just realised I can start this war a bit earlier than initially planned. Jaunpur will do the first work for me. He is interested in Dang, but as this is the wargoal, he will transfer the occupation to me. He is also interested in some of Jharkhand's provinces, but I will peace this nation out separately. Jaunpur has no interest in Kathmandu, but I do have.
For the moment it might not be clear, what the idea of this war is. Military wise it is not a problem against the three minors, of course.
After all an 18-stack (13/0/5), about half of my army, is on the way to toast Kathmandu's 9-stack. Jaunpur in the very south of Jharkhand has decided to avoid a battle 15 vs 12 and is returning. His other armies are sieging the war goal (-21%). With way more troops than necessary, getting a lot of attrition for no reason. Supply limit is 18, a typical AI-siege.
After two stackwipes on Kathmandu, I have sent my cannons to the sieges of the remaining capital forts. +35% progress on both, so probably not long until the jobs are done. Jharkhand's army is still alive, it is somewhere in Bengal's lands.
Ming has taken two provinces from Chagatai and made him his tributary. He is not bordering me, but he gave me the honor to be his exclusive rival. Probably he can't see other eligible nations through "terra incognita".
So here is the point of the first war. It is this second one on Doti and friends.
First I am circumventing Jaunpur's guarantee for Doti. Then, if I first grab the provinces of 2PM Dotti and OPM Gorkha (light green, east of Doti), I can thereafter take the provinces from Dang and Kathmandu by the other war. Because of the coring rules, here connection to owned provinces.
To get Gorkha into the war I declare OPM Tirhut (green, southeast of Gorkha) as co-belligerent. This will also bring in Garjat, who is the 2PM, also in a kind of olive-green, east of Jharkhand. No accident I waited for the completion of the siege on Jharkhand, so my troops can directly attack Garjat's 7-stack.
The last new war enemy is Idar, the 4PM in blue, on the Indian west coast, southwest of Malwa in the Gujarat region. Visible e.g. in the picture one before.
Neither Gorkha, nor Garjat are in the war yet. But they could stil join, as their alliances with Tirhut are intact.
After the opening stackwipe on Doti in June, I started the siege over there, which has just ended. Instead of waiting for Garjat, I removed my 17-stack, including 7 Multani regiments, to the north to grill Tirhut's 8-stack. Now I can likewise siege his capital province, Champaran (-14%).
With most of my troops busy in the east, I just had a 7-stack in the west. Not enough to attack Idar's 9-stack, who has passed some of my provinces to siege my fort in Derajat (-21%). Well, my vassal Multan helped him by asking Kutch for Mil access. Sigh. I have ordered a 5-stack over from the east, but now I go for a complete siege of Idar, before possibly attacking his army.
Champaran, 23.Oct.84, after just 26 days. Half of my troops are still waiting in the east for signs of Gorkha or Garjat to enter the war. Meanwhile I have peaced out Jharkhand for money in the other war.
In the west Idar has made good progress (+14%) on Derajat, his general has very respectable 4 pips for siege. I have rolled also a better siege general with R. Nagar (4/2/1/3) and he is on Ahmadabad (-7%), Idar's capital. After the arrival of my 5 cannons from Kutch, the siege progress will increase significantly.
On 12.Nov.84 a new Heir was born: Rafi' (2/4/5) with a strong claim. 11 Mpoints is good, although he lacks some quality in Adm points. I keep him.
The fort in Derajat resisted one more phase and I have attacked the Idari army with pure infantry. I could have let him siege on. Even if he wins a siege of a fort, it is no big deal. But I think my army is quite strong and manpower is ok, so I can take such battles now.
Idar has survived the battle, but he has nowhere to go to and he will have to stop in the neighboring province of Bhakkar. So I will finish him off with refreshed forces in April.
Idar's capital has fallen into my hands on 19.Apr.85 and so I signed a sepearte peace with him. Besides war reps, Idar lost his alliance with Vijy.
My beloved ally Kutch: I finally made it to +190 opinion. Using everything I could, a RM for 5 legitimacy and a scornful insult on his rival Porbandar for 5 prestige. The breakthrough is now +15 opinion for "forced other to give up claim on us". That is Idar, by one of my demands in the peace deal.
So I get five more provinces for THoT by accepting Kutch's irresistable offer to become my diplo-vassal. A very nice gain as a side effect from these wars. I had to fight harder for these provinces by diplomacy than for others in many wars by military.
Time to end both main wars now. Gorkha and Garjat never joined. Without the connection by the province Gorkha, I had to find an inferior alternative to grab the two provinces of Kathmandu.
Thus I already force-vassalized Tirhut and finished the second war by fully annexing Doti with his two provinces.
Now I can take Dang and the two provinces from Kathmandu. Because I can core adjacent provinces to a core of my subject on the same continent. Coring rules.
The AE list isn't getting better. Now it is three with Timurids, Porbandar and Gorkha. The rest is on a truce or will not exist anymore. Not the big Muslim nations, the small Hindu minors are those to watch and keep out of a possible coalition, it seems.
The non-participation of Gorkha and Garjat is the same problem I had in 1471 with Chagatai, when I declared on his tributary subject Ladakh. I know, calls to arms for allies of co-belligerents might take months, but this non-participation is simply frustrating. It upsets my strategical plans.
In 1471 I expected Chagatai to join, which would have made that war more difficult and longer. But otoh I could have helped my at that time good ally Transoxiana indirectly. Even when I count the incident of 1471 as an ease for me, now I am clearly handicapped.
I replayed the war on Doti, starting in Jun.84, twice, to see if e.g. my siege of Tirhut influenced the non-participation. No, Gorkha and Garjat never joined the war. It is not that they were close to dishonoring the defense of Tirhut because of loans or low manpower. The CtAs simply didn't get send.
For this war I found a workaround, but what about next time I want to co-belli someone? I can only stop the game, start a test war and see, if all nations with a green check really join. Otherwise I have to look for a different war scenario. Hmm.
Back to the game. Look at the coring cost reduction, almost 90%!
In Oct.84 I accumulated sufficent Adm points to take Administrative as second idea group and fill out the first two ideas, for the famous "Adaptability" (-25% CCC). Land aquistation is the Iqta tax choice for -5%. Coring time is also reduced nicely by most of the modifiers. Actually the effect of CCR is capped at 80%, 1 point per dev for territorial cores, but still. Yes, I can't core Kathmandu atm, but have to wait for the core of the southern neighbor province Makwanpur to be finished. Because of the missing link Gorkha. Well.
The truce with Mewar will be up in May.86 and after the vassalization of Kutch I can take some AE in the west again, maybe. Or not?
Let's see ... next time.
Indian provinces: Mughals 42, Multan 4 = in total 46/255 for THoT
Some changes: I have disinherited Shir Shah and got a Padishah Begum (Queen) after a RM from Jaunpur, Bibi Raji (5/4/5). She is very good, way better than her husband. Wouldn't be bad to have her as regent. Diplomatically I canceled the alliance with Transoxiana and could arrange new ones with Vijayanagar and the Ottomans. Seems, the Mughals are big enough to be taken seriously by major nations now. Also I set Bahmanis as new rival.
Jaunpur has revoked his guarantee of Limbuwan and instead guaranteed my neighbor Doti. Hmm, is my BFF trying to prevent my expansions?
Next war, in the Himalaya region. Dang is the yellow OPM. His ally Kathmandu, the 2PM west of Limbuwan, brings in Jharkhand. My army is not in position, right? Well, my troops are still busy with rebel suppression in Central India. Coring of four provinces from the last war with Delhi is also not completed yet.
I just realised I can start this war a bit earlier than initially planned. Jaunpur will do the first work for me. He is interested in Dang, but as this is the wargoal, he will transfer the occupation to me. He is also interested in some of Jharkhand's provinces, but I will peace this nation out separately. Jaunpur has no interest in Kathmandu, but I do have.
For the moment it might not be clear, what the idea of this war is. Military wise it is not a problem against the three minors, of course.
After all an 18-stack (13/0/5), about half of my army, is on the way to toast Kathmandu's 9-stack. Jaunpur in the very south of Jharkhand has decided to avoid a battle 15 vs 12 and is returning. His other armies are sieging the war goal (-21%). With way more troops than necessary, getting a lot of attrition for no reason. Supply limit is 18, a typical AI-siege.
After two stackwipes on Kathmandu, I have sent my cannons to the sieges of the remaining capital forts. +35% progress on both, so probably not long until the jobs are done. Jharkhand's army is still alive, it is somewhere in Bengal's lands.
Ming has taken two provinces from Chagatai and made him his tributary. He is not bordering me, but he gave me the honor to be his exclusive rival. Probably he can't see other eligible nations through "terra incognita".
So here is the point of the first war. It is this second one on Doti and friends.
First I am circumventing Jaunpur's guarantee for Doti. Then, if I first grab the provinces of 2PM Dotti and OPM Gorkha (light green, east of Doti), I can thereafter take the provinces from Dang and Kathmandu by the other war. Because of the coring rules, here connection to owned provinces.
To get Gorkha into the war I declare OPM Tirhut (green, southeast of Gorkha) as co-belligerent. This will also bring in Garjat, who is the 2PM, also in a kind of olive-green, east of Jharkhand. No accident I waited for the completion of the siege on Jharkhand, so my troops can directly attack Garjat's 7-stack.
The last new war enemy is Idar, the 4PM in blue, on the Indian west coast, southwest of Malwa in the Gujarat region. Visible e.g. in the picture one before.
Neither Gorkha, nor Garjat are in the war yet. But they could stil join, as their alliances with Tirhut are intact.
After the opening stackwipe on Doti in June, I started the siege over there, which has just ended. Instead of waiting for Garjat, I removed my 17-stack, including 7 Multani regiments, to the north to grill Tirhut's 8-stack. Now I can likewise siege his capital province, Champaran (-14%).
With most of my troops busy in the east, I just had a 7-stack in the west. Not enough to attack Idar's 9-stack, who has passed some of my provinces to siege my fort in Derajat (-21%). Well, my vassal Multan helped him by asking Kutch for Mil access. Sigh. I have ordered a 5-stack over from the east, but now I go for a complete siege of Idar, before possibly attacking his army.
Champaran, 23.Oct.84, after just 26 days. Half of my troops are still waiting in the east for signs of Gorkha or Garjat to enter the war. Meanwhile I have peaced out Jharkhand for money in the other war.
In the west Idar has made good progress (+14%) on Derajat, his general has very respectable 4 pips for siege. I have rolled also a better siege general with R. Nagar (4/2/1/3) and he is on Ahmadabad (-7%), Idar's capital. After the arrival of my 5 cannons from Kutch, the siege progress will increase significantly.
On 12.Nov.84 a new Heir was born: Rafi' (2/4/5) with a strong claim. 11 Mpoints is good, although he lacks some quality in Adm points. I keep him.
The fort in Derajat resisted one more phase and I have attacked the Idari army with pure infantry. I could have let him siege on. Even if he wins a siege of a fort, it is no big deal. But I think my army is quite strong and manpower is ok, so I can take such battles now.
Idar has survived the battle, but he has nowhere to go to and he will have to stop in the neighboring province of Bhakkar. So I will finish him off with refreshed forces in April.
Idar's capital has fallen into my hands on 19.Apr.85 and so I signed a sepearte peace with him. Besides war reps, Idar lost his alliance with Vijy.
My beloved ally Kutch: I finally made it to +190 opinion. Using everything I could, a RM for 5 legitimacy and a scornful insult on his rival Porbandar for 5 prestige. The breakthrough is now +15 opinion for "forced other to give up claim on us". That is Idar, by one of my demands in the peace deal.
So I get five more provinces for THoT by accepting Kutch's irresistable offer to become my diplo-vassal. A very nice gain as a side effect from these wars. I had to fight harder for these provinces by diplomacy than for others in many wars by military.
Time to end both main wars now. Gorkha and Garjat never joined. Without the connection by the province Gorkha, I had to find an inferior alternative to grab the two provinces of Kathmandu.
Thus I already force-vassalized Tirhut and finished the second war by fully annexing Doti with his two provinces.
Now I can take Dang and the two provinces from Kathmandu. Because I can core adjacent provinces to a core of my subject on the same continent. Coring rules.
The AE list isn't getting better. Now it is three with Timurids, Porbandar and Gorkha. The rest is on a truce or will not exist anymore. Not the big Muslim nations, the small Hindu minors are those to watch and keep out of a possible coalition, it seems.
The non-participation of Gorkha and Garjat is the same problem I had in 1471 with Chagatai, when I declared on his tributary subject Ladakh. I know, calls to arms for allies of co-belligerents might take months, but this non-participation is simply frustrating. It upsets my strategical plans.
In 1471 I expected Chagatai to join, which would have made that war more difficult and longer. But otoh I could have helped my at that time good ally Transoxiana indirectly. Even when I count the incident of 1471 as an ease for me, now I am clearly handicapped.
I replayed the war on Doti, starting in Jun.84, twice, to see if e.g. my siege of Tirhut influenced the non-participation. No, Gorkha and Garjat never joined the war. It is not that they were close to dishonoring the defense of Tirhut because of loans or low manpower. The CtAs simply didn't get send.
For this war I found a workaround, but what about next time I want to co-belli someone? I can only stop the game, start a test war and see, if all nations with a green check really join. Otherwise I have to look for a different war scenario. Hmm.
Back to the game. Look at the coring cost reduction, almost 90%!
In Oct.84 I accumulated sufficent Adm points to take Administrative as second idea group and fill out the first two ideas, for the famous "Adaptability" (-25% CCC). Land aquistation is the Iqta tax choice for -5%. Coring time is also reduced nicely by most of the modifiers. Actually the effect of CCR is capped at 80%, 1 point per dev for territorial cores, but still. Yes, I can't core Kathmandu atm, but have to wait for the core of the southern neighbor province Makwanpur to be finished. Because of the missing link Gorkha. Well.
The truce with Mewar will be up in May.86 and after the vassalization of Kutch I can take some AE in the west again, maybe. Or not?
Let's see ... next time.
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An easy although productive war. The no CtA seems like a bug, should it be reported?
I guess it would be correct to file a bug report. But I have done that before. With screenshots and an extracted save-file. That bug is still in the game.
Probably here with the CtA of co-bellis, it is another feature of the game, most people are fine with it the very most of the time. So not important and I assume a correction would need more than a few clicks.
More Hindu Minors
More Hindu Minors
Indian provinces: Mughals 47, Kutch 5, Multan 4, Tirhut 1 = in total 57/255 for THoT
Octopus Mughals now with a large Himalayan tentacle.
The truce with Mewar has ended, I have everything in position. With every conquest I can increase my FL somewhat, my army is now 40 (30/0/10) out of 40 regs.
Porbandar (violet) has just eaten up Idar completely. The later was with no friends and no army. My responsibility, I like it if minors are removed from the map. Porbandar has no other allies, so I can safely co-belli him.
Actually I would have liked to have 3PM Baglana (dark red/brown, east of Porbandar) in this war too, but he has debts of 350 ducats for 17 loans and is far away from honoring any CtA. But I have a claim on him, so I might declare on him soon afterwards.
All hostile armies got removed in a few days. In Mewar, Gorwar with the capital fort has been occupied faster than the two other unfortified provinces. Porbandar has a level-2 fort in the hills of Girmar, besides his level-1 fort at the coast (+7%).
Not much to say about this war, as all the work is done in less than half a year.
Besides: The cannons are to blame, I win my wars too quickly now. The AE-list is getting longer and longer. I could sit on the war for something like two years and then take more. Instead I decide to peace out now and take less. Mewar completely, but only the three ports of Porbandar, as I want to build some kind of navy, at least slowly. Unfortunately all coastal provinces are already on increased autonomy, so I don't get much out of them for some time.
Coalitions: My general approach is pretty conservative: Simply avoid them. Even before declaring war on me, a coalition is pretty nasty. Because after the formation it is a kind of an extra defensive pact for all the members.
To form a coalition it needs four countries with opinion lower 0, AE of at least -50 and not having a truce with me. Looking at the list above, this is Baglana, Timurids, Gorkha and Bahmanis. That is four. There is one more condition, I am pretty sure about. The country must be at peace. Timmy is not, as he is trying to help Haasa against Mushasha and Qara in an offensive war, which is not looking good for Timmy.
That is why I take this peace deal. In addition Bahmanis will be above -50 AE after two yearly ticks, so in Jan.88.
Another important condition is: The possible coalition "must pose a threat". That is vague, so I have never really tested it. Following the experience of some players, the FL is important for this, maybe all decisive. So only if the sum of the FLs of all possible coalition members is higher than that of me, my subjects and any of my allies willing to defend, a coalition might form.
I think, at some point in this game I have to go beyond my traditional approach and have to risk, whether the AIs think a possible coalition would cause a threat to me or not. We will see. It is clearly helpful that I already have big allies with the Ottomans, Vijayanagar and Jaunpur.
Pffft, that's for the plan to attack Baglana next.
I was "just" waiting until Mar.88 for the three cores of Porbandar to be finished. Baglana has a core on two of these provinces as well. So far he was only allied to Andhra (in another kind of green), reduced to a 4PM, in the southeast of Bahmanis. I think Vijy is more protecting Baglana against Bahmanis than against me, but the result is: I have to forget about this minor in the west for now.
However, one problem from earlier years has not occurred for some time: Since I have the Feudal de Jure edict, I could prevent any more rebellions to form so far.
So let's go to the east again for the next war, on Gorkha.
Jaunpur is meanwhile guaranteeing Delhi and Limbuwan, but he can't guarantee Gorkha. Yes, it is Gorkha, the missing link from the last episode. Tsang also holds two provinces on the Indian sub-continent. One north of Gorkha and the other east of Limbuwan. Greedy as ever, I would also like to have the two provinces of Assam (red). Which will pose a problem with the connection of provinces again. But first let's do the work in this war.
The enemies have no real forts. Palpa, Gorkha's captial, has surrendered already and some of my single stacks are flooding Tsang. Gorkha's 6-stack and the main 11-stack of Tsang are not more. The 10-stack of Assam and the 3-stack of Tsang, to be seen here, is all, what is left of hostile troops.
A lot of pop-ups, something has happened.
First my progress in the war: After just a little rest, I attacked the two stacks of Assam and Tsang and eliminated them on 16.Aug.88. The two remaining capitals, Lhasa (+35%) and Assam (+7%), are under siege and I have occupied almost all of the rest. Tsang has rebuild a 3-stack in the northern province of Nagchu, but some of my troops are already on the way to deal with this last flame of resistance.
Now for the news of a war declaration. Sadiya, the 2 PM (one more tag in olive-green) east of Asssam, declares on Tsang. Obviously opportunistic, because Tsang lost his entire army against me. Sadiya can count on his two minor allies Manipur and Tripura, while Tsang is defended by Mong Yang and Limbuwan. And the participation of Limbuwan forces a quick reaction of mine.
I have to declare my war on Limbuwan now, which I would have liked to do a bit later. But the 10-stack of Sadiya might come to the idea to occupy something in Limbuwan. As I want every Limbuwani province myself, I have to reach all of them before Sadiya. One of the meanwhile usual races for province occupations.
Now it becomes clear, why I called in Jaunpur in the first war. Just to prevent him from fulfilling his guarantee on Limbuwan against me. Nice, that Kham isn't willing to defend. Guge wants to and I can't control his armies atm, so he will likely do some damage in my provinces in North India.
My 10-stack in Morang, Limbuwan's capital, will be black-flagged at the start of the war. But it is on its way west to a home province anyway and will return immediately thereafter.
I have reached all of Limbuwan's provinces in time. See the 10-stack of Sadiya in Morang? Too late, so he goes away again. The last Limbuwani troops tried to escape north via Sakya to Guge in the west. But I could catch them in Gyirong. Even if I have to attack in the mountains, no problem.
Tsang's capital Lhasa has been sieged down in the meantime, Assam is still in progress.
In the east Assam has fallen and my 5 cannons are on the way to Morang (0%). My other cannons are on Guge's capital Ngari (+14%), while I ordered a 13-stack of infantry back to the Lahore area from the south, to deal with the two stacks of Guge.
As a side observation: Since the age of artillery started, I have hardly used the troops of my vassals or allies. They are useless for sieges without cannons, can't carpet siege and for maneuvers they are too slow and inflexible. So I prefer to do the very most of the work on my own. At least in these smaller wars.
Lately I have taken Diplo Idea #6 "Flexible Negotiation", for -20% province score cost in wars. It will be very helpful later against the Indian major nations.
Nothing much happened in recent months. I have improved relations with some nations. After the end of the siege of Ngari, I peaced out Guge for money and a little prestige. Now I fully annex Limbuwan. Actually the 3 dev province of Sikkim is not in India, but it is the last province with Nepali culture. So because of the Mughals mechanic of "accepting" cultures by simply owning all of these provinces, I take Sikkim too.
The religion in Limbuwan, as well as in Tsang, is Vajrayana, so Buddhist. Thus it is not very much AE, except with the neighbors. Timmy is missing (with -110 AE) on the list, because he gets 0 AE from this war, but I may not forget about him.
With the connection by Limbuwan's former lands, I can also grab the desired provinces from the first war. In a separate peace with Tsang I got his two provinces Chaubisi Rajya and Darrang. I let Hindu Assam go for money, as the AE-costs would be too high to annex this secondary participant too.
Now the annexation of Hindu OPM Gorkha finishes both wars in this region.
Eligible members for a coalition are now Baglana (-175), Timurids (-112) and Bahmanis (-55). So just three and I am good for the moment. But several small and medium nations are out just because of a truce. While others are close to -50 AE or have a slightly positive opinion of Mughals.
Next one coming out of truce is Malwa in Nov.90.
More about coalition preventing and the next wars ... next time.
Indian provinces: Mughals 47, Kutch 5, Multan 4, Tirhut 1 = in total 57/255 for THoT
Octopus Mughals now with a large Himalayan tentacle.
The truce with Mewar has ended, I have everything in position. With every conquest I can increase my FL somewhat, my army is now 40 (30/0/10) out of 40 regs.
Porbandar (violet) has just eaten up Idar completely. The later was with no friends and no army. My responsibility, I like it if minors are removed from the map. Porbandar has no other allies, so I can safely co-belli him.
Actually I would have liked to have 3PM Baglana (dark red/brown, east of Porbandar) in this war too, but he has debts of 350 ducats for 17 loans and is far away from honoring any CtA. But I have a claim on him, so I might declare on him soon afterwards.
All hostile armies got removed in a few days. In Mewar, Gorwar with the capital fort has been occupied faster than the two other unfortified provinces. Porbandar has a level-2 fort in the hills of Girmar, besides his level-1 fort at the coast (+7%).
Not much to say about this war, as all the work is done in less than half a year.
Besides: The cannons are to blame, I win my wars too quickly now. The AE-list is getting longer and longer. I could sit on the war for something like two years and then take more. Instead I decide to peace out now and take less. Mewar completely, but only the three ports of Porbandar, as I want to build some kind of navy, at least slowly. Unfortunately all coastal provinces are already on increased autonomy, so I don't get much out of them for some time.
Coalitions: My general approach is pretty conservative: Simply avoid them. Even before declaring war on me, a coalition is pretty nasty. Because after the formation it is a kind of an extra defensive pact for all the members.
To form a coalition it needs four countries with opinion lower 0, AE of at least -50 and not having a truce with me. Looking at the list above, this is Baglana, Timurids, Gorkha and Bahmanis. That is four. There is one more condition, I am pretty sure about. The country must be at peace. Timmy is not, as he is trying to help Haasa against Mushasha and Qara in an offensive war, which is not looking good for Timmy.
That is why I take this peace deal. In addition Bahmanis will be above -50 AE after two yearly ticks, so in Jan.88.
Another important condition is: The possible coalition "must pose a threat". That is vague, so I have never really tested it. Following the experience of some players, the FL is important for this, maybe all decisive. So only if the sum of the FLs of all possible coalition members is higher than that of me, my subjects and any of my allies willing to defend, a coalition might form.
I think, at some point in this game I have to go beyond my traditional approach and have to risk, whether the AIs think a possible coalition would cause a threat to me or not. We will see. It is clearly helpful that I already have big allies with the Ottomans, Vijayanagar and Jaunpur.
Pffft, that's for the plan to attack Baglana next.
I was "just" waiting until Mar.88 for the three cores of Porbandar to be finished. Baglana has a core on two of these provinces as well. So far he was only allied to Andhra (in another kind of green), reduced to a 4PM, in the southeast of Bahmanis. I think Vijy is more protecting Baglana against Bahmanis than against me, but the result is: I have to forget about this minor in the west for now.
However, one problem from earlier years has not occurred for some time: Since I have the Feudal de Jure edict, I could prevent any more rebellions to form so far.
So let's go to the east again for the next war, on Gorkha.
Jaunpur is meanwhile guaranteeing Delhi and Limbuwan, but he can't guarantee Gorkha. Yes, it is Gorkha, the missing link from the last episode. Tsang also holds two provinces on the Indian sub-continent. One north of Gorkha and the other east of Limbuwan. Greedy as ever, I would also like to have the two provinces of Assam (red). Which will pose a problem with the connection of provinces again. But first let's do the work in this war.
The enemies have no real forts. Palpa, Gorkha's captial, has surrendered already and some of my single stacks are flooding Tsang. Gorkha's 6-stack and the main 11-stack of Tsang are not more. The 10-stack of Assam and the 3-stack of Tsang, to be seen here, is all, what is left of hostile troops.
A lot of pop-ups, something has happened.
First my progress in the war: After just a little rest, I attacked the two stacks of Assam and Tsang and eliminated them on 16.Aug.88. The two remaining capitals, Lhasa (+35%) and Assam (+7%), are under siege and I have occupied almost all of the rest. Tsang has rebuild a 3-stack in the northern province of Nagchu, but some of my troops are already on the way to deal with this last flame of resistance.
Now for the news of a war declaration. Sadiya, the 2 PM (one more tag in olive-green) east of Asssam, declares on Tsang. Obviously opportunistic, because Tsang lost his entire army against me. Sadiya can count on his two minor allies Manipur and Tripura, while Tsang is defended by Mong Yang and Limbuwan. And the participation of Limbuwan forces a quick reaction of mine.
I have to declare my war on Limbuwan now, which I would have liked to do a bit later. But the 10-stack of Sadiya might come to the idea to occupy something in Limbuwan. As I want every Limbuwani province myself, I have to reach all of them before Sadiya. One of the meanwhile usual races for province occupations.
Now it becomes clear, why I called in Jaunpur in the first war. Just to prevent him from fulfilling his guarantee on Limbuwan against me. Nice, that Kham isn't willing to defend. Guge wants to and I can't control his armies atm, so he will likely do some damage in my provinces in North India.
My 10-stack in Morang, Limbuwan's capital, will be black-flagged at the start of the war. But it is on its way west to a home province anyway and will return immediately thereafter.
I have reached all of Limbuwan's provinces in time. See the 10-stack of Sadiya in Morang? Too late, so he goes away again. The last Limbuwani troops tried to escape north via Sakya to Guge in the west. But I could catch them in Gyirong. Even if I have to attack in the mountains, no problem.
Tsang's capital Lhasa has been sieged down in the meantime, Assam is still in progress.
In the east Assam has fallen and my 5 cannons are on the way to Morang (0%). My other cannons are on Guge's capital Ngari (+14%), while I ordered a 13-stack of infantry back to the Lahore area from the south, to deal with the two stacks of Guge.
As a side observation: Since the age of artillery started, I have hardly used the troops of my vassals or allies. They are useless for sieges without cannons, can't carpet siege and for maneuvers they are too slow and inflexible. So I prefer to do the very most of the work on my own. At least in these smaller wars.
Lately I have taken Diplo Idea #6 "Flexible Negotiation", for -20% province score cost in wars. It will be very helpful later against the Indian major nations.
Nothing much happened in recent months. I have improved relations with some nations. After the end of the siege of Ngari, I peaced out Guge for money and a little prestige. Now I fully annex Limbuwan. Actually the 3 dev province of Sikkim is not in India, but it is the last province with Nepali culture. So because of the Mughals mechanic of "accepting" cultures by simply owning all of these provinces, I take Sikkim too.
The religion in Limbuwan, as well as in Tsang, is Vajrayana, so Buddhist. Thus it is not very much AE, except with the neighbors. Timmy is missing (with -110 AE) on the list, because he gets 0 AE from this war, but I may not forget about him.
With the connection by Limbuwan's former lands, I can also grab the desired provinces from the first war. In a separate peace with Tsang I got his two provinces Chaubisi Rajya and Darrang. I let Hindu Assam go for money, as the AE-costs would be too high to annex this secondary participant too.
Now the annexation of Hindu OPM Gorkha finishes both wars in this region.
Eligible members for a coalition are now Baglana (-175), Timurids (-112) and Bahmanis (-55). So just three and I am good for the moment. But several small and medium nations are out just because of a truce. While others are close to -50 AE or have a slightly positive opinion of Mughals.
Next one coming out of truce is Malwa in Nov.90.
More about coalition preventing and the next wars ... next time.
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I could write the last 3 episodes en bloc, up to the point I caught up with my game. Now I have to play again for a while.
Good anticipation. Shortly after the last war I allied Bengal and Jaunpur cancelled our long time alliance. He is now allied to my rival Bahmanis.
Me (and my translation programs) are somewhat lost at the word "pegs". But I think you are indicating it needs several wars to take Jaunpur down. Very true. This might happen in the next episodes ... maybe.
Thanks a lot for the nomination of my France report, this is motivating.
And of course heartly congratulations on your award in the Vic2 section.
Malwa (2nd)
Malwa (2nd)
Indian provinces: Mughals 61, Kutch 5, Multan 4, Tirhut 1 = in total 71/255 for THoT
The Mughals have reached almost the eastern borders of India. Just four minors and Bengal are left over there. But I have different plans.
The diplomatic map mode showing my alliances. I try to weave a net of assurance against coalitions. Besides my old alliances with Jaunpur plus Baluchistan and the more recent ones with Ottomans plus Vijayanagar, I signed two new ones with Qara Qoyunlu and Bengal. For Bengal I had to prepare it with a RM and probably it is the last chance to get this alliance, because my AE is already at -69.
As a consequence Jaunpur already announced to break our everlasting friendship. Despite +200 opinion, as he is allied to my rivals Bahmanis and Timurids, while I have allied now his rival Bengal. For a total of -150 reasons to keep the alliance. I wanted to use him just one last time in the next war, I swear. With allying Bengal before the last wars in the Himalaya and dragging out these wars, I could have made Jaunpur stay with me longer. But ok, it is the way it is.
Malwa and my very old companion Transoxiana. The army of mine is 45 (30/0/15) out of 47, Malwa has 19/27 and Transox 19/20 regs. My three vassals have 13 regiments in total, whether they will be of any use is an open question. Baluchistan might be helpful against Transox, I might call him in later. First I want to overrun Malwa to extinguish his resistance.
Rolling generals with 90+ AT helps, B.S. Rumi (4/5/4/3) is the new star in my army. Malwa's 7-stack, seen in the last picture, got killed on 22.Oct.90. Now I found the remaining 12-stack. I get more than +50% morale bonus from Golden Era, prestige, PP and AT. Some reward from not sitting around and doing nothing, like AIs do.
Two days later the battle is already over, costing me just 720 infantry for the stackwipe.
I siege Malwa's capital level-1 fort in Mandu with 5 cannons (+21%), my vassals can start the sieges on the other two forts. Most of my troops are gathering to walk over to Transox. He is meanwhile in a second war: Uzbek and Great Horde vs Nogai, Transoxiana and Kazan. "Khorasan island" is getting occupied again, the area at the Caspian Sea, where this campaign started once upon a time. Now it is time to call in Baluchistan, I suppose.
For the second age ability I choose "Transfer Subject", because of "claims bordering claims". A tough decision, as "Justified Wars" with -10% AE is highly attractive too.
Mandu has fallen on 22.Feb.91. Everyone is on Rewakantha (0%) now, meaning vassals don't spread out optimally and Baluchistan's 15-stack has gone south to Kutch, totally in vain.
For the first time in this campaign I have used my 5 transports to transfer a 5-stack to the west of Baluchistan, now on its way north to liberate Khorasan island. In Southern Afghanistan I have splitted my troops (25k) a bit to avoid attrition, they are heading northwest for the Transoxianian forts.
Very rarely, but it happens. I have messed up a single stack in Bukhara. When I saw the hostile 8-stack in Khiva (Uzbek), the single stack was just locked in walking over from Charjuy. Any substantial help would have arrived too late. There is a 19-stack Uzbek sieging in the capital of Samarkand next door and I wanted to secure the occupation of the fort in Bukhara.
Interesting news: My friend Qara declared war on Aq. Overall it is Qara, Mushasha and Mazandaran vs Aq, Timurids and Gazikumukh. Always good to see Timmy busy in a war.
Rewakantha, 8.May.91, now Mandla in the east of Malwa is already on +28% progress. Transoxianian troops have long left homeland, thus I came back to Bukhara with pure infantry for the moment (-42%). The other fort in Merv is on +57%, so to fall some time soon to my 10 artillery regs.
Mandla, 22.Nov.91, thus Malwa is done. Merv, 17.Dec.91, the cannons are on the way to Bukhara. At this point Transoxiana doesn't even want a white peace. Lol, but I have some time as the next potential war is with Jharkhand and this truce ends in Jun.93.
This day, the 1.Jan.92, means new Tech, so I get +3 states from Adm Tech 8 and +0.25 infantry fire plus +0.8 cavalry shock from Mil Tech 8.
Bukhara finally surrendered on 20.Jun.92 and I peaced out Transoxiana for money.
Peasant uprising in Kutch. Two reasons, why I don't like to play with subjects. The rebel faction progress in subject's lands is not displayed in the outliner. AIs are scripted to let rebels break out and succeed way more often than necessary, for realism or alt history. In the consequence I have to baby sit my vassals and take care of the rebels myself. Not a problem here as Kutch is two Mil Techs behind, just some annoyance.
Much more enjoyable are the negotiations with Malwa. I want all provinces in the two areas Malwa and Gondwana. Because of the mission "Conquer Malwa", giving me perma claims on four new areas. And I can get all these ten provinces because of the -20% province score cost from the Diplo idea.
Coalition list is three for the moment: Baglana, Timurids and Bahmanis. So this ok and I can reorganize my armies and prepare for the next war in Jun.93. Or I wait a bit more until Oct.93 for my new cores to be finished.
What the hell? I get a call to arms?
Vijy declares on Bahmanis plus Jaunpur and expects me to join. Fantastic. Fighting wars and spending my resources for others is the last I want to do.
Usually I try to avoid this by improving relations with possible victims of my allies and set them on "friendly". Bahmanis is my rival, so this wasn't possible.
But I have 10 loans for 2680 ducats in debt, thus I am completely baffled. The rule is, AIs send only CtA to the player, if the AI would honor the call being in the player's position. I can't remember an AI willing to join with such debts. But, yes, I think the rule is respected, it is just close. I could have avoided this scenario by taking unnecessarily more loans, if I would just have known ... <curse>.
So what to do?
I save the game and finish the session. Not to cheat the CtA away, but to wager my options and try to find the way to make the best out of this dilemma.
Accepting or declining? The answer will come ... next time.
Indian provinces: Mughals 61, Kutch 5, Multan 4, Tirhut 1 = in total 71/255 for THoT
The Mughals have reached almost the eastern borders of India. Just four minors and Bengal are left over there. But I have different plans.
The diplomatic map mode showing my alliances. I try to weave a net of assurance against coalitions. Besides my old alliances with Jaunpur plus Baluchistan and the more recent ones with Ottomans plus Vijayanagar, I signed two new ones with Qara Qoyunlu and Bengal. For Bengal I had to prepare it with a RM and probably it is the last chance to get this alliance, because my AE is already at -69.
As a consequence Jaunpur already announced to break our everlasting friendship. Despite +200 opinion, as he is allied to my rivals Bahmanis and Timurids, while I have allied now his rival Bengal. For a total of -150 reasons to keep the alliance. I wanted to use him just one last time in the next war, I swear. With allying Bengal before the last wars in the Himalaya and dragging out these wars, I could have made Jaunpur stay with me longer. But ok, it is the way it is.
Malwa and my very old companion Transoxiana. The army of mine is 45 (30/0/15) out of 47, Malwa has 19/27 and Transox 19/20 regs. My three vassals have 13 regiments in total, whether they will be of any use is an open question. Baluchistan might be helpful against Transox, I might call him in later. First I want to overrun Malwa to extinguish his resistance.
Rolling generals with 90+ AT helps, B.S. Rumi (4/5/4/3) is the new star in my army. Malwa's 7-stack, seen in the last picture, got killed on 22.Oct.90. Now I found the remaining 12-stack. I get more than +50% morale bonus from Golden Era, prestige, PP and AT. Some reward from not sitting around and doing nothing, like AIs do.
Two days later the battle is already over, costing me just 720 infantry for the stackwipe.
I siege Malwa's capital level-1 fort in Mandu with 5 cannons (+21%), my vassals can start the sieges on the other two forts. Most of my troops are gathering to walk over to Transox. He is meanwhile in a second war: Uzbek and Great Horde vs Nogai, Transoxiana and Kazan. "Khorasan island" is getting occupied again, the area at the Caspian Sea, where this campaign started once upon a time. Now it is time to call in Baluchistan, I suppose.
For the second age ability I choose "Transfer Subject", because of "claims bordering claims". A tough decision, as "Justified Wars" with -10% AE is highly attractive too.
Mandu has fallen on 22.Feb.91. Everyone is on Rewakantha (0%) now, meaning vassals don't spread out optimally and Baluchistan's 15-stack has gone south to Kutch, totally in vain.
For the first time in this campaign I have used my 5 transports to transfer a 5-stack to the west of Baluchistan, now on its way north to liberate Khorasan island. In Southern Afghanistan I have splitted my troops (25k) a bit to avoid attrition, they are heading northwest for the Transoxianian forts.
Very rarely, but it happens. I have messed up a single stack in Bukhara. When I saw the hostile 8-stack in Khiva (Uzbek), the single stack was just locked in walking over from Charjuy. Any substantial help would have arrived too late. There is a 19-stack Uzbek sieging in the capital of Samarkand next door and I wanted to secure the occupation of the fort in Bukhara.
Interesting news: My friend Qara declared war on Aq. Overall it is Qara, Mushasha and Mazandaran vs Aq, Timurids and Gazikumukh. Always good to see Timmy busy in a war.
Rewakantha, 8.May.91, now Mandla in the east of Malwa is already on +28% progress. Transoxianian troops have long left homeland, thus I came back to Bukhara with pure infantry for the moment (-42%). The other fort in Merv is on +57%, so to fall some time soon to my 10 artillery regs.
Mandla, 22.Nov.91, thus Malwa is done. Merv, 17.Dec.91, the cannons are on the way to Bukhara. At this point Transoxiana doesn't even want a white peace. Lol, but I have some time as the next potential war is with Jharkhand and this truce ends in Jun.93.
This day, the 1.Jan.92, means new Tech, so I get +3 states from Adm Tech 8 and +0.25 infantry fire plus +0.8 cavalry shock from Mil Tech 8.
Bukhara finally surrendered on 20.Jun.92 and I peaced out Transoxiana for money.
Peasant uprising in Kutch. Two reasons, why I don't like to play with subjects. The rebel faction progress in subject's lands is not displayed in the outliner. AIs are scripted to let rebels break out and succeed way more often than necessary, for realism or alt history. In the consequence I have to baby sit my vassals and take care of the rebels myself. Not a problem here as Kutch is two Mil Techs behind, just some annoyance.
Much more enjoyable are the negotiations with Malwa. I want all provinces in the two areas Malwa and Gondwana. Because of the mission "Conquer Malwa", giving me perma claims on four new areas. And I can get all these ten provinces because of the -20% province score cost from the Diplo idea.
Coalition list is three for the moment: Baglana, Timurids and Bahmanis. So this ok and I can reorganize my armies and prepare for the next war in Jun.93. Or I wait a bit more until Oct.93 for my new cores to be finished.
What the hell? I get a call to arms?
Vijy declares on Bahmanis plus Jaunpur and expects me to join. Fantastic. Fighting wars and spending my resources for others is the last I want to do.
Usually I try to avoid this by improving relations with possible victims of my allies and set them on "friendly". Bahmanis is my rival, so this wasn't possible.
But I have 10 loans for 2680 ducats in debt, thus I am completely baffled. The rule is, AIs send only CtA to the player, if the AI would honor the call being in the player's position. I can't remember an AI willing to join with such debts. But, yes, I think the rule is respected, it is just close. I could have avoided this scenario by taking unnecessarily more loans, if I would just have known ... <curse>.
So what to do?
I save the game and finish the session. Not to cheat the CtA away, but to wager my options and try to find the way to make the best out of this dilemma.
Accepting or declining? The answer will come ... next time.
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Thank you.
I think, I found a somewhat dirty way out of the dilemma. Let's see the next episode ...
Bahmanis and Jaunpur
Bahmanis and Jaunpur
Indian provinces: Mughals 71, Kutch 5, Multan 4, Tirhut 1 = in total 81/255 for THoT
Some changes in the Tibetan region. Tsang has been completely destroyed in two wars. As I grabbed Darrang in the area Assam from Tsang (see penultimate episode), Sadiya had no border with Tsang anymore. So he demanded the release of U. The rest of Tsang was shared by Guge and Kham, giving the later the opportunity to form the new nation of Tibet.
Accepting or declining?
Numbers: Mughals 46 (30/0/16) out of 51 regs, my three vassals 13/14, Vijayanagar 57/67 and his vassal Venad 6/6. The other side: Bahmanis 34/54 and Jaunpur 29/47.
Declining the call means -25 prestige and -1 dip rep for 5 years. What is not displayed, it costs -5 trust with every nation knowing about us, from Morocco to China. That is really ugly and can cause problems for the willingness of other allies to join my future offensive wars or to defend me against a coalition. In addition I would get -100 opinion with Vijayanagar and our alliance would be cancelled immediately. Thus after a 5-year truce I would have Vijy on the possible list for a coalition. Besides Timmy, Jaunpur and Bahmanis. Uncomfortable.
The upside of declining is, I can do my own thing. So I could attack Bahmanis/Jaunpur myself, in a moment they are exhausted by fighting Vijy.
Accepting: The biggest disadvantage is, I am in the hands of AI-Vijayanagar as the warleader. As he likes, he can peace out or drag out the war and give me what he wants. Although the troop numbers look really good, accepting has some practical problems. Vijy has a small surface, with the exception of four provinces on the west coast. Meaning Bahmanis/Jaunpur can't reach Vijy's heartland without passing the 57 regs concentrated a bit north of his border, as seen in the picture. As AIs are big cowards Bahmanis/Jaunpur will shy away from fighting Vijy and look for something else to do in the war.
And that will be my lands, the moment I join. Thus I have to carry the main burden of the war. I have a number of forts, but they have holes, so that the enemies can stream deep into my territory. E.g. in the west through Kutch.
All the provinces from the last war with Malwa are still cores under construction. Meaning an occupation would freeze the coring process, resulting in prolonged OE, unrest etc.
CtAs are not pending, so at the start of a new session it takes some days to get a new CtA. Thus it is possible to swindle it away by taking more loans or breaking the alliance or simply delaying the decision endlessly. But no.
In the end accepting is better than declining, I think. So I do it now, respecting the original deadline of two months, ending on 17.Jan.93.
Meanwhile I have used the short time for some preparation. I marked every hostile province as vital interest, filed a third claim on Bahmanis, turned on my forts, raised maintenance and ordered 4 new cannons. My military plan is to defend my southern border with 30 regs, while my 20-stack (10/0/10) in Dang in the Himalaya (covered by the 2.9k of Tirhut) will try to siege down all of Jaunpur.
My political plan? Get as much warscore as possible and then let's see.
Funny event, giving me +50 opinion against the nation I am bitterly fighting at the moment.
Jaunpur quickly orders his troops back to home territory. He can walk from East Berar (Bahmanis) through my fort in Mandla to his province in Bagelkhand, because his fort in Kalinjar projects a friendly ZOC. I wait until the first 12-stack has passed by and then I will attack the remaing 17k on the jungle terrain in Mandla. At least my fort grants me the terrain bonus.
My siege stack is already working on his level-3 fort in the capital Jaunpur (0%).
A nice result in the battle, I assume. Besides the usual advantage in morale and pips by generals, I have the bonus of +0.25 infantry fire from Mil Tech 8. My army is simply good, even without cavalry/elephants. My siege stack is safe now, because Jaunpur hasn't enough troops to attack it anymore. So the battle stack will stay in the west, a Bahmani 11-stack seems to go for a visit of another province of mine.
Two siege phases and Jaunpur's capital has fallen, good. Now I can reach almost all Jaunpuri provinces from the east side. He is breeding out a lot of single stacks already. Partly because stackwiping returns some manpower to the loser. A rule to help the stupid AI, maybe?
A Bahmani 9-stack has fallen into the trap of Mandla again and will die 7 days later.
Now 13 Jaunpuri regs in the farmlands of Varansi, southeast of the province Jaunpur. Another elimination, my siege stack can battle too.
In Jaunpur I am carpet sieging to kill the unborn, chasing freshly hatched single stacks and desperately trying to make use of my vassals' troops. Now the last 5 Jaunpuri regs can't escape the battle in Baisi Rajya anymore.
Coring in the Malwa area is finished, in the Gondwana area it will take 3 1/2 more months. So my 20-stack in Mandu (at my southern border) is still patrolling to defend against intruders. AI-Kutch thinks this is not a good idea and goes somewhere else. Sigh.
Vijy? Conquered the fort in Mudgal, he has been sieging since the start of the war, on 2.May.93. Won one major battle in that area too.
My manpower is somewhat low with 974, not? I rolled some more generals, see A.B. Bhutto (5/6/4/2). Thus I have 3 "slacken standards" in reserve, giving me about 8.000 manpower each, thus no problem. I could persuade Tirhut to join my siege in Central Doab (-28%), while my real siege stack with 10 cannons is on Kalinjar (0%).
Vijy has moved a bit forward. Bahmanis seems to be running around, no serious attempt to stream into my lands recently.
The siege of Kalinjar is just over, so I will roll these 10 cannons north to Central Doab (+21%). Meanwhile the cores in Gondwana are done too and I can get the rewards from the mission "Conquer Malwa". Perma claims amongst others on Porbandar and Baglana, the two remaining minors in the west. Plus a nice -50% local autonomy in the Malwa area.
The war scenario in the south has changed somewhat; Vijy has opened the door for Bahmanis. He sieges now two forts in the center (Bidar -14%) and in the east (Khamammet -28%). So Bahmanis takes the chance to liberate some provinces in the west with his entire troops.
And I use this opportunity to go into the offensive against Bahmanis, starting the siege in the hills of Burhanpur (0%). With my other 10 cannons and the somewhat surprising support of Kutch.
Nice event, giving me effectively 120 Dip points, as I am way above my relationship limit with 5 allies and 3 vassals.
Central Doab, 13.Jan.94 and the progress on Burhanpur is +28%. Vijy has given up one siege already again. Bahmanis is running away and a 12-stack has taken the western route into my lands, through Baglana to Kutch. I let him go his way and concentrate on my siege.
The fort in Burhanpur it taken down. But even more importantly, Bidar, Bahmanis capital, is green striped. Vijy is only interested in some border provinces, especially his three cores. So he transfers the occuption to me, because I have flagged everything as vital interest, before joining the war. My best move. This is increasing my individual warscore by +14% to +61%. What a present of Vijy on a silver platter.
Thank you and goodbye!
Seven provinces, including three forts and three CoT. Way more than I ever expected. AE is moderate as Bahmanis is Shia. My price: -10 trust with Vijy and his vassal Venad. So my alliance with Vijy will hold.
The real irony of this separate peace is this: If I would have declared the war on Bahmanis myself and would have called in Vijy on the promise of land, then this exact peace deal would have cost me -20 trust and thus the alliance with Vijayanagar. What can I say?
Short before the end of the war the game assigned me a war participation of 37%. Lol. I have cracked 4 forts and occupied entire Jaunpur, while Vijy got 2 forts and 5 more provinces. I killed about 50k in battles, while Vijy at best about 15k.
The value of war participation is determined ingame by the participation in battles and sieges. This means Vijy got a lot of value, when he sieged Mudgal for more than half a year with 40+ regs. Causing him a lot of unnecessary attrition. My siege on Jaunpur was done in 2 months with 15-20 regs. So I got way less war participation out of this. With battles it is similar. While I did clean and quick stackwipes, Vijy won one big battle with 59 vs 24.
In a word: War participation is designed to favor exactly the way AIs handle warfare. Totally incompetent and ineffective.
Apart from the problem with the war participation, if the AI-warleader thinks of a peace deal, I am not asked, whether I agree or not. So Vijy might have given me different provinces from those I want. But most likely he would have given me way less than even the war participation and would have paid the difference with favors. Not with me.
I can't say this seperate peace was exactly my plan. But I always had the idea of it in the back of my mind and so I tried to obtain individual war score, not war participation.
It started with a shock, but for a change this was a very interesting war for me. And in the end I came out way better than expected.
But it is not the time to rest on laurels. The truce with Jharkhand is already over and the truce with Delhi ends in Oct.96.
Let's see more wars ... next time.
Indian provinces: Mughals 71, Kutch 5, Multan 4, Tirhut 1 = in total 81/255 for THoT
Some changes in the Tibetan region. Tsang has been completely destroyed in two wars. As I grabbed Darrang in the area Assam from Tsang (see penultimate episode), Sadiya had no border with Tsang anymore. So he demanded the release of U. The rest of Tsang was shared by Guge and Kham, giving the later the opportunity to form the new nation of Tibet.
Accepting or declining?
Numbers: Mughals 46 (30/0/16) out of 51 regs, my three vassals 13/14, Vijayanagar 57/67 and his vassal Venad 6/6. The other side: Bahmanis 34/54 and Jaunpur 29/47.
Declining the call means -25 prestige and -1 dip rep for 5 years. What is not displayed, it costs -5 trust with every nation knowing about us, from Morocco to China. That is really ugly and can cause problems for the willingness of other allies to join my future offensive wars or to defend me against a coalition. In addition I would get -100 opinion with Vijayanagar and our alliance would be cancelled immediately. Thus after a 5-year truce I would have Vijy on the possible list for a coalition. Besides Timmy, Jaunpur and Bahmanis. Uncomfortable.
The upside of declining is, I can do my own thing. So I could attack Bahmanis/Jaunpur myself, in a moment they are exhausted by fighting Vijy.
Accepting: The biggest disadvantage is, I am in the hands of AI-Vijayanagar as the warleader. As he likes, he can peace out or drag out the war and give me what he wants. Although the troop numbers look really good, accepting has some practical problems. Vijy has a small surface, with the exception of four provinces on the west coast. Meaning Bahmanis/Jaunpur can't reach Vijy's heartland without passing the 57 regs concentrated a bit north of his border, as seen in the picture. As AIs are big cowards Bahmanis/Jaunpur will shy away from fighting Vijy and look for something else to do in the war.
And that will be my lands, the moment I join. Thus I have to carry the main burden of the war. I have a number of forts, but they have holes, so that the enemies can stream deep into my territory. E.g. in the west through Kutch.
All the provinces from the last war with Malwa are still cores under construction. Meaning an occupation would freeze the coring process, resulting in prolonged OE, unrest etc.
CtAs are not pending, so at the start of a new session it takes some days to get a new CtA. Thus it is possible to swindle it away by taking more loans or breaking the alliance or simply delaying the decision endlessly. But no.
In the end accepting is better than declining, I think. So I do it now, respecting the original deadline of two months, ending on 17.Jan.93.
Meanwhile I have used the short time for some preparation. I marked every hostile province as vital interest, filed a third claim on Bahmanis, turned on my forts, raised maintenance and ordered 4 new cannons. My military plan is to defend my southern border with 30 regs, while my 20-stack (10/0/10) in Dang in the Himalaya (covered by the 2.9k of Tirhut) will try to siege down all of Jaunpur.
My political plan? Get as much warscore as possible and then let's see.
Funny event, giving me +50 opinion against the nation I am bitterly fighting at the moment.
Jaunpur quickly orders his troops back to home territory. He can walk from East Berar (Bahmanis) through my fort in Mandla to his province in Bagelkhand, because his fort in Kalinjar projects a friendly ZOC. I wait until the first 12-stack has passed by and then I will attack the remaing 17k on the jungle terrain in Mandla. At least my fort grants me the terrain bonus.
My siege stack is already working on his level-3 fort in the capital Jaunpur (0%).
A nice result in the battle, I assume. Besides the usual advantage in morale and pips by generals, I have the bonus of +0.25 infantry fire from Mil Tech 8. My army is simply good, even without cavalry/elephants. My siege stack is safe now, because Jaunpur hasn't enough troops to attack it anymore. So the battle stack will stay in the west, a Bahmani 11-stack seems to go for a visit of another province of mine.
Two siege phases and Jaunpur's capital has fallen, good. Now I can reach almost all Jaunpuri provinces from the east side. He is breeding out a lot of single stacks already. Partly because stackwiping returns some manpower to the loser. A rule to help the stupid AI, maybe?
A Bahmani 9-stack has fallen into the trap of Mandla again and will die 7 days later.
Now 13 Jaunpuri regs in the farmlands of Varansi, southeast of the province Jaunpur. Another elimination, my siege stack can battle too.
In Jaunpur I am carpet sieging to kill the unborn, chasing freshly hatched single stacks and desperately trying to make use of my vassals' troops. Now the last 5 Jaunpuri regs can't escape the battle in Baisi Rajya anymore.
Coring in the Malwa area is finished, in the Gondwana area it will take 3 1/2 more months. So my 20-stack in Mandu (at my southern border) is still patrolling to defend against intruders. AI-Kutch thinks this is not a good idea and goes somewhere else. Sigh.
Vijy? Conquered the fort in Mudgal, he has been sieging since the start of the war, on 2.May.93. Won one major battle in that area too.
My manpower is somewhat low with 974, not? I rolled some more generals, see A.B. Bhutto (5/6/4/2). Thus I have 3 "slacken standards" in reserve, giving me about 8.000 manpower each, thus no problem. I could persuade Tirhut to join my siege in Central Doab (-28%), while my real siege stack with 10 cannons is on Kalinjar (0%).
Vijy has moved a bit forward. Bahmanis seems to be running around, no serious attempt to stream into my lands recently.
The siege of Kalinjar is just over, so I will roll these 10 cannons north to Central Doab (+21%). Meanwhile the cores in Gondwana are done too and I can get the rewards from the mission "Conquer Malwa". Perma claims amongst others on Porbandar and Baglana, the two remaining minors in the west. Plus a nice -50% local autonomy in the Malwa area.
The war scenario in the south has changed somewhat; Vijy has opened the door for Bahmanis. He sieges now two forts in the center (Bidar -14%) and in the east (Khamammet -28%). So Bahmanis takes the chance to liberate some provinces in the west with his entire troops.
And I use this opportunity to go into the offensive against Bahmanis, starting the siege in the hills of Burhanpur (0%). With my other 10 cannons and the somewhat surprising support of Kutch.
Nice event, giving me effectively 120 Dip points, as I am way above my relationship limit with 5 allies and 3 vassals.
Central Doab, 13.Jan.94 and the progress on Burhanpur is +28%. Vijy has given up one siege already again. Bahmanis is running away and a 12-stack has taken the western route into my lands, through Baglana to Kutch. I let him go his way and concentrate on my siege.
The fort in Burhanpur it taken down. But even more importantly, Bidar, Bahmanis capital, is green striped. Vijy is only interested in some border provinces, especially his three cores. So he transfers the occuption to me, because I have flagged everything as vital interest, before joining the war. My best move. This is increasing my individual warscore by +14% to +61%. What a present of Vijy on a silver platter.
Thank you and goodbye!
Seven provinces, including three forts and three CoT. Way more than I ever expected. AE is moderate as Bahmanis is Shia. My price: -10 trust with Vijy and his vassal Venad. So my alliance with Vijy will hold.
The real irony of this separate peace is this: If I would have declared the war on Bahmanis myself and would have called in Vijy on the promise of land, then this exact peace deal would have cost me -20 trust and thus the alliance with Vijayanagar. What can I say?
Short before the end of the war the game assigned me a war participation of 37%. Lol. I have cracked 4 forts and occupied entire Jaunpur, while Vijy got 2 forts and 5 more provinces. I killed about 50k in battles, while Vijy at best about 15k.
The value of war participation is determined ingame by the participation in battles and sieges. This means Vijy got a lot of value, when he sieged Mudgal for more than half a year with 40+ regs. Causing him a lot of unnecessary attrition. My siege on Jaunpur was done in 2 months with 15-20 regs. So I got way less war participation out of this. With battles it is similar. While I did clean and quick stackwipes, Vijy won one big battle with 59 vs 24.
In a word: War participation is designed to favor exactly the way AIs handle warfare. Totally incompetent and ineffective.
Apart from the problem with the war participation, if the AI-warleader thinks of a peace deal, I am not asked, whether I agree or not. So Vijy might have given me different provinces from those I want. But most likely he would have given me way less than even the war participation and would have paid the difference with favors. Not with me.
I can't say this seperate peace was exactly my plan. But I always had the idea of it in the back of my mind and so I tried to obtain individual war score, not war participation.
It started with a shock, but for a change this was a very interesting war for me. And in the end I came out way better than expected.
But it is not the time to rest on laurels. The truce with Jharkhand is already over and the truce with Delhi ends in Oct.96.
Let's see more wars ... next time.
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'Take someone down a peg or two' is an idiom that more or less means to humble or humiliate someone. In Paradox speak, it would probably be something like 'cut down to size'.
Thank you! And I was glad to be able to vote for your work. I'm constantly awe of your gameplay, and its always well presented.
That's pretty dirty how the AI works out war participation. Not ideal when you're just trying to play a clean game. Good progress nevertheless.
Ahh, that's a language I understand. And I can promise to deliver in the next episode(s).
Jharkhand, Jaunpur (2nd & 3rd) and Delhi (3rd)
Jharkhand, Jaunpur (2nd & 3rd) and Delhi (3rd)
Indian provinces: Mughals 78, Kutch 5, Multan 4, Tirhut 1 = in total 88/255 for THoT
The Mughals with a nice addition in the southwest at the expense of Bahmanis last time. The Timurids have annexed Fars, I start the integration of my vassal Multan.
About half a year after the finish of the last war, I am ready for the next one, on Jharkhand. Actually this was planned for Oct.93, until Vijayanagar messed up my schedule. Tirhut is set on scutage, therefore I can integrate him without trouble caused by occupations, when I want to.
So it is Jaunpur again, who is also still in the war with Vijy. Actually I should have mothballed all Jaunpuri forts, before signing peace with Bahmanis. To have them with incomplete garrison now, but I forgot to do.
My plan is to first secure the occupation of all six provinces of Jharkhand and then call in Bengal on the promise of land. If you count eight provinces for Jharkhand on the screenshot, Garjat has almost the same color and holds two provinces.
I have asked for mil access by Garjat before, so I could catch the entire Jharkhandi army from the east side, for the usual early stackwipe in Sambalpur. My other army in Jaunpur is going for the siege of Kalinjar (-28%) and the occupation of unfortified provinces, thereby having a quick meeting with a 2-stack.
Jaunpur has 15k somewhere in Bahmanis and he is again breeding several new single stacks.
In Jaunpur I am now sieging the forts in Rohtasgarh (+14%) and in Kalinjar (+28%). But because I come from the west side, the two forts block my troops and I can't prevent the train of single stacks from Jaunpur southeast to Bengal and then south into the direction of the Ganges Delta. But now I can call in Bengal and use his armies and forts.
In the south of Jharkhand my army is not allowed to move into Bahmanis' lands, so Jaunpur can hide his troops in his other war. Unless he makes the mistake of moving to one of the provinces, I can access, like Patna here. His 9-stack from the south is locked in and my 18-stack will jump on it from the east. Ending in the obvious bloodbath some days later.
The war is going to be a lot more chaotic than I wanted. Bengal doesn't defend his homelands, but moves all his armies to Jaunpur, maybe to get some occupations for himself. As I will peace out Jaunpur separately this isn't a big problem.
Some hostile troops are in Bengal, some are in Bahmanis and the biggest Jaunpuri army (9.1k) is blackflagged. Because I cancelled the access from Garjat, but the Jaunpuri army had its return province in Garjat and used it. Some new Jaunpuri single stacks appear in Jaunpur, while I got the fort in Rohtasgarh and Kalinjar is on +64%. I try to use my two vassals in the northwest for the siege of Central Doab (-35%), Tirhut is neutral. And two of my many rebel factions would like to break out, in the provinces I got from Malwa some years ago.
In the other war, which I left so abruptly last time, Vijy conquered Bidar anew and is on +55% warscore vs Bahmanis, my respect.
Five months later. I did some rebel suppression, killed a few small stacks in the south and took down the two forts in Kalinjar plus Jharkhand. So I am sieging now Jaunpur (+28%). In the north I told Multan to withdraw from the siege of Central Doab, but in vain. Jaunpur breeded out almost 20 regiments and concentrated them to kill the 6-stack of Multan. Kutch did nothing, but standing around and my forces came too late. However now I could battle the first of the new Jaunpuri armies in Delhi. The 7-stack marching west will be next, I have to chase it a bit. Jaunpur's blackflagged 10-stack is still moving around headlessly, atm south of Vagad, in one of Malwa's provinces.
The war is almost over, I am on every province in Jaunpur. While Bengal does something useful for a change and fights a 2-stack for me. Chasing one or two single stacks in the eastern Himalaya and watching the blackflagged 10-stack, currently in Bastar (Bahmanis), is all what is left. But I will remain seated on this war until the truce with Delhi is over in October this year. Some time to take care of my rebel factions and do more suppression.
The nine months have passed, so let's go to war with Delhi for a last time.
Step 1: Sign a seperate peace with Jaunpur for 100% score.
I grab four provinces, including the two forts in Kalinjar and Rohtasgarh, for the increased price of +50% AE. Moreover I force Jaunpur to break all his alliances with Timmy, Bahmanis and Porbandar. He started the war with 15k, but the statistics of casualties reveal, he produced amazing 45k during the war. Oh, the fate of the black-flagged 10-stack? After several moves, it self-destructed somewhere in the west of Baglana or Malwa. Simply disbanded by AI-Jaunpur without reason.
Step 2: Declare on Delhi.
Bengal can't join, as he is still together with me in the other war against Jharkhand. Jaunpur will join, with no soldiers and mothballed forts. Aha, this time I didn't forget to do this one month before. Baluchistan, my future former ally, will join with a self-mothballed fort in Kalat and both his armies covered by appropriate stacks of mine. My entire army is now 56 (32/0/24) out of 57. My vassal Multan is out of this war by scutage. A consequence of his poor display last time.
If this looks like a good preparation, I have overlooked that mothballing the level-3 fort in Jaunpur leaves it with a garrison of 1000. Thus it is not emptied, but just with lower garrison. Moreover I don't need the occupation of that fort at all, so I should have placed all 30 regs in the north, close to Delhi.
13.Nov.96, Baluchistan out for some money. 20.Nov.96, Jaunpur out for a white peace, after I got the occupation of Central Doab within a month. The new truce with Jaunpur is timed to end in Jan.02. The truce reduction from 15 to 5 years was the sole reason to include Jaunpur into this war.
As a consequence of my suboptimal army setup at the start of the war, the 11-stack of Delhi is now running around. I have already invested in a fort in Morang (Nepal), but this building is still under construction for more than a year.
The war Vijy vs Bahmanis totally turned around in 1496. The warscore is now +8% in favor of Bahmanis. Bahmanis could liberate his two forts in Bidar plus Mudgal and occupy the level-1 fort in the capital province Vijayanagar. Maybe Vijy spend too much time in the east on a fort there. But in the end I don't know exactly what happened, both nations have been low on manpower for a while.
After the fall of the capital Upper Doab it is time to peace out Delhi. These demands were my original intention, taking five provinces and vassalize Delhi on his last province. Delhi has a lot of cores around, so I could use him for a Reconquest next time on Jaunpur.
But this deal runs into a bug. It is the payment of Dip points, the UI displays I have to pay 10. I have claims on all provinces and declared conquest war, so I can grab all provinces for 0 Dip points. Vassalizing is not included in the CB, thus I have to pay for "unjustified demands". Which is 3 Dip points per development. Kangra, the designated last province of Delhi, has 4 dev. So the costs are 12 Dip, but I get a discount of 10%, because of the Golden Era. That is 10.8 points, rounded down to 10, as displayed. Well, but if I make this deal I suddenly have to pay 137 points!
Probably I ran into this bug several times before, without noticing. AAR writing helps. I did it in this campaign early, when fighting Multan in 1468. Reviewing the two screenshots from 20./21.Jul.68 reveals, I was supposed to pay 6 Dip points, for Multan's last 3 dev province, but in fact I payed 76 points.
The bug is, I have to pay for "unjustified" as if I vassalize the entire nation. At that time Multan (with 38 dev) was my rival, so I got a reduction to just 2 points per "unjustified" development. Therefore: 38 dev * 2 points = 76 points.
Here with Delhi it is 51 dev * 3 points = 153 points. Including the discount from Golden Era 137.7 points, rounded down to 137. Instead of 10, as correctly displayed.
So what to do? Besides the fact that I hate to pay 127 Dip points for no reason, but a bug, I am integrating Multan and Tirhut is in the pipe. If I do this deal I end on -108 Dip points, which will freeze integrations until I come back to at least 0 again. Unpleasant.
I considered taking just the five desired provinces and let Delhi live as an OPM in Kangra, then vassalize him after the next war. But possibly Delhi gets alliances with Ming and Ottomans, the day before I will attack him again. Well ok, not Ming and Ottofriend, but Timmy and Jaunpur is quite realistic.
At this point in the game I am already somewhat sick and tired of vassal play, again. So I throw every caution overboard and decide to fully annex Delhi. A decision, I might regret bitterly or I can pat myself on the shoulder for, twenty years from now.
The remaining Delhi army converts into an 11-stack of rebels. A little chasing has to be done.
Now I can also end the war with Jharkhand. I take just the two provinces, I have claims on. No Diplo costs and I get a border with Garjat. AE list: Baglana, Timmy, Chagatai and Garjat. That is four, but with Timurids just one serious possible member of a coalition. I have fairly good relations with Chagatai, so I could get him out with some money, if necessary.
Soon after Vijy gives one province to Bahmanis and that war is over too.
The next truce running out is with Porbandar in Dec.01, a long time from now. I have no truces with Baglana and Garjat, but both are somewhat defended. But maybe I get a chance sooner than expected or I prepare a visit in the far east of India once more.
More about it ... next time.
Indian provinces: Mughals 78, Kutch 5, Multan 4, Tirhut 1 = in total 88/255 for THoT
The Mughals with a nice addition in the southwest at the expense of Bahmanis last time. The Timurids have annexed Fars, I start the integration of my vassal Multan.
About half a year after the finish of the last war, I am ready for the next one, on Jharkhand. Actually this was planned for Oct.93, until Vijayanagar messed up my schedule. Tirhut is set on scutage, therefore I can integrate him without trouble caused by occupations, when I want to.
So it is Jaunpur again, who is also still in the war with Vijy. Actually I should have mothballed all Jaunpuri forts, before signing peace with Bahmanis. To have them with incomplete garrison now, but I forgot to do.
My plan is to first secure the occupation of all six provinces of Jharkhand and then call in Bengal on the promise of land. If you count eight provinces for Jharkhand on the screenshot, Garjat has almost the same color and holds two provinces.
I have asked for mil access by Garjat before, so I could catch the entire Jharkhandi army from the east side, for the usual early stackwipe in Sambalpur. My other army in Jaunpur is going for the siege of Kalinjar (-28%) and the occupation of unfortified provinces, thereby having a quick meeting with a 2-stack.
Jaunpur has 15k somewhere in Bahmanis and he is again breeding several new single stacks.
In Jaunpur I am now sieging the forts in Rohtasgarh (+14%) and in Kalinjar (+28%). But because I come from the west side, the two forts block my troops and I can't prevent the train of single stacks from Jaunpur southeast to Bengal and then south into the direction of the Ganges Delta. But now I can call in Bengal and use his armies and forts.
In the south of Jharkhand my army is not allowed to move into Bahmanis' lands, so Jaunpur can hide his troops in his other war. Unless he makes the mistake of moving to one of the provinces, I can access, like Patna here. His 9-stack from the south is locked in and my 18-stack will jump on it from the east. Ending in the obvious bloodbath some days later.
The war is going to be a lot more chaotic than I wanted. Bengal doesn't defend his homelands, but moves all his armies to Jaunpur, maybe to get some occupations for himself. As I will peace out Jaunpur separately this isn't a big problem.
Some hostile troops are in Bengal, some are in Bahmanis and the biggest Jaunpuri army (9.1k) is blackflagged. Because I cancelled the access from Garjat, but the Jaunpuri army had its return province in Garjat and used it. Some new Jaunpuri single stacks appear in Jaunpur, while I got the fort in Rohtasgarh and Kalinjar is on +64%. I try to use my two vassals in the northwest for the siege of Central Doab (-35%), Tirhut is neutral. And two of my many rebel factions would like to break out, in the provinces I got from Malwa some years ago.
In the other war, which I left so abruptly last time, Vijy conquered Bidar anew and is on +55% warscore vs Bahmanis, my respect.
Five months later. I did some rebel suppression, killed a few small stacks in the south and took down the two forts in Kalinjar plus Jharkhand. So I am sieging now Jaunpur (+28%). In the north I told Multan to withdraw from the siege of Central Doab, but in vain. Jaunpur breeded out almost 20 regiments and concentrated them to kill the 6-stack of Multan. Kutch did nothing, but standing around and my forces came too late. However now I could battle the first of the new Jaunpuri armies in Delhi. The 7-stack marching west will be next, I have to chase it a bit. Jaunpur's blackflagged 10-stack is still moving around headlessly, atm south of Vagad, in one of Malwa's provinces.
The war is almost over, I am on every province in Jaunpur. While Bengal does something useful for a change and fights a 2-stack for me. Chasing one or two single stacks in the eastern Himalaya and watching the blackflagged 10-stack, currently in Bastar (Bahmanis), is all what is left. But I will remain seated on this war until the truce with Delhi is over in October this year. Some time to take care of my rebel factions and do more suppression.
The nine months have passed, so let's go to war with Delhi for a last time.
Step 1: Sign a seperate peace with Jaunpur for 100% score.
I grab four provinces, including the two forts in Kalinjar and Rohtasgarh, for the increased price of +50% AE. Moreover I force Jaunpur to break all his alliances with Timmy, Bahmanis and Porbandar. He started the war with 15k, but the statistics of casualties reveal, he produced amazing 45k during the war. Oh, the fate of the black-flagged 10-stack? After several moves, it self-destructed somewhere in the west of Baglana or Malwa. Simply disbanded by AI-Jaunpur without reason.
Step 2: Declare on Delhi.
Bengal can't join, as he is still together with me in the other war against Jharkhand. Jaunpur will join, with no soldiers and mothballed forts. Aha, this time I didn't forget to do this one month before. Baluchistan, my future former ally, will join with a self-mothballed fort in Kalat and both his armies covered by appropriate stacks of mine. My entire army is now 56 (32/0/24) out of 57. My vassal Multan is out of this war by scutage. A consequence of his poor display last time.
If this looks like a good preparation, I have overlooked that mothballing the level-3 fort in Jaunpur leaves it with a garrison of 1000. Thus it is not emptied, but just with lower garrison. Moreover I don't need the occupation of that fort at all, so I should have placed all 30 regs in the north, close to Delhi.
13.Nov.96, Baluchistan out for some money. 20.Nov.96, Jaunpur out for a white peace, after I got the occupation of Central Doab within a month. The new truce with Jaunpur is timed to end in Jan.02. The truce reduction from 15 to 5 years was the sole reason to include Jaunpur into this war.
As a consequence of my suboptimal army setup at the start of the war, the 11-stack of Delhi is now running around. I have already invested in a fort in Morang (Nepal), but this building is still under construction for more than a year.
The war Vijy vs Bahmanis totally turned around in 1496. The warscore is now +8% in favor of Bahmanis. Bahmanis could liberate his two forts in Bidar plus Mudgal and occupy the level-1 fort in the capital province Vijayanagar. Maybe Vijy spend too much time in the east on a fort there. But in the end I don't know exactly what happened, both nations have been low on manpower for a while.
After the fall of the capital Upper Doab it is time to peace out Delhi. These demands were my original intention, taking five provinces and vassalize Delhi on his last province. Delhi has a lot of cores around, so I could use him for a Reconquest next time on Jaunpur.
But this deal runs into a bug. It is the payment of Dip points, the UI displays I have to pay 10. I have claims on all provinces and declared conquest war, so I can grab all provinces for 0 Dip points. Vassalizing is not included in the CB, thus I have to pay for "unjustified demands". Which is 3 Dip points per development. Kangra, the designated last province of Delhi, has 4 dev. So the costs are 12 Dip, but I get a discount of 10%, because of the Golden Era. That is 10.8 points, rounded down to 10, as displayed. Well, but if I make this deal I suddenly have to pay 137 points!
Probably I ran into this bug several times before, without noticing. AAR writing helps. I did it in this campaign early, when fighting Multan in 1468. Reviewing the two screenshots from 20./21.Jul.68 reveals, I was supposed to pay 6 Dip points, for Multan's last 3 dev province, but in fact I payed 76 points.
The bug is, I have to pay for "unjustified" as if I vassalize the entire nation. At that time Multan (with 38 dev) was my rival, so I got a reduction to just 2 points per "unjustified" development. Therefore: 38 dev * 2 points = 76 points.
Here with Delhi it is 51 dev * 3 points = 153 points. Including the discount from Golden Era 137.7 points, rounded down to 137. Instead of 10, as correctly displayed.
So what to do? Besides the fact that I hate to pay 127 Dip points for no reason, but a bug, I am integrating Multan and Tirhut is in the pipe. If I do this deal I end on -108 Dip points, which will freeze integrations until I come back to at least 0 again. Unpleasant.
I considered taking just the five desired provinces and let Delhi live as an OPM in Kangra, then vassalize him after the next war. But possibly Delhi gets alliances with Ming and Ottomans, the day before I will attack him again. Well ok, not Ming and Ottofriend, but Timmy and Jaunpur is quite realistic.
At this point in the game I am already somewhat sick and tired of vassal play, again. So I throw every caution overboard and decide to fully annex Delhi. A decision, I might regret bitterly or I can pat myself on the shoulder for, twenty years from now.
The remaining Delhi army converts into an 11-stack of rebels. A little chasing has to be done.
Now I can also end the war with Jharkhand. I take just the two provinces, I have claims on. No Diplo costs and I get a border with Garjat. AE list: Baglana, Timmy, Chagatai and Garjat. That is four, but with Timurids just one serious possible member of a coalition. I have fairly good relations with Chagatai, so I could get him out with some money, if necessary.
Soon after Vijy gives one province to Bahmanis and that war is over too.
The next truce running out is with Porbandar in Dec.01, a long time from now. I have no truces with Baglana and Garjat, but both are somewhat defended. But maybe I get a chance sooner than expected or I prepare a visit in the far east of India once more.
More about it ... next time.
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That dip points thing is a serious bug. Not helpful at all.
Good progress in spite of it, mind.
Good progress in spite of it, mind.
That is quite a bug. Good update though, it has put me in the mood to play some EU4