L'État, C'est Moi - A France AAR (Veritas et Fortitudo)

[delpiero1234]

Well, I'd suggest you try to get all the ex-Roman Empire lands, but what would be left for my future AAR then?
Just kidding, do it if you think it suits you. Though, I rather think you should try something completely else. For example, give a general closing update on this AAR, then go way out of your comfort zone and try to play as the Yap island nation(I've seen it suggested on your previous AAR). Also, change your style a bit. Instead of this gameplay-type? AAR, give it maybe more of a history book type feeling? Otherwise, your AAR's, however good they may be, will ultimately become boring.
That's my two cents. Cheers!

Thanks for the feedback!
I noticed that the interest in this AAR has recently decreased and I assume that this is because my AAR focuses too much on gameplay; so what you say is true. I'll write a few more updates for this AAR in gameplay style to finish it - changing style within the AAR won't work I think.

I don't know how soon I will start a new AAR but I'll probably do a different style next time. I have no experience with history book style so I'll have to read a few history book AARs first before I try writing my own.

 

[unmerged(576153)]

Thanks for the feedback!
I noticed that the interest in this AAR has recently decreased and I assume that this is because my AAR focuses too much on gameplay; so what you say is true. I'll write a few more updates for this AAR in gameplay style to finish it - changing style within the AAR won't work I think.

I don't know how soon I will start a new AAR but I'll probably do a different style next time. I have no experience with history book style so I'll have to read a few history book AARs first before I try writing my own.

It isn't that it focuses too much on gameplay, the problem really is that updates are more-less the same(I didn't mind, but that's just me. If I like it, I read it). Especially after you beat the Jihad!

I also didn't mean you should change the style duing this AAR, but rather that you change it when you write your new one. For history book style, I'd reccomend volksmarshall AAR's(any one, really). You could also try narrative, and Tanzhang's Byzantium AAR is a great one for that style.

I may be the very ambitious with mine, really, since I intend to fuse all three styles - the narrative, the history book, and gameplay. Very tough, but I'll make it. I am sure I can do it, after all, I want to be both a book writer and video game writer/designer.

But I digress. I love your AAR's, and I'd love to see you continue to do them. Just do them however you want to do them.

 

[DKM]

Thanks for the feedback!
I noticed that the interest in this AAR has recently decreased and I assume that this is because my AAR focuses too much on gameplay; so what you say is true. I'll write a few more updates for this AAR in gameplay style to finish it - changing style within the AAR won't work I think.

I don't know how soon I will start a new AAR but I'll probably do a different style next time. I have no experience with history book style so I'll have to read a few history book AARs first before I try writing my own.

Nah, if I like an AAR, I'll read it from start to end even if it becomes just stomping on people. I haven't commented or come here much because I don't want to see that HIDEOUS color shade too much.

 

[delpiero1234]

@Shadowsc2: Thanks for the kind words I'll continue this AAR probably until January 1st 1700. The upcoming chapters will probably cover a larger time frame because things are starting to get repetitive. That way I hope to make things more interesting again.



@DKM: I'm glad to hear that you are still on board :happy:
You really, really seem to hate this purple color... :ninja:

 

[Psion]

Really nice AAR. I too am playing the Angevin Union, and for the record I love the purple.

It's interesting to see how differently our games have gone. I started building boats for an assault on England right off the bat, and so formed the union much earlier. But elsewhere, I've mostly been diplo-annexing my way through. I've befriended Castile, become the HRE emperor and focused on getting established in South Africa, India, and the East Indies right away. This has payed off very well though, since I make 490 ducats a month in trade alone (I could do better if I wasn't lazy and upgraded my fleets ever). Byzantium is my biggest rival, and has an alliance with a similarly massive Austria, Trebizond and Russia that stretches from The Alps to Kamchatka.

I too am starting to burn out on this game. Though recently an interesting development happened that will keep me around for at least a little while. I recently lost the HRE emperorship when my king died at age 80 without a male heir, with only a little bit of imperial authority left before the crown becomes inherited. So now I have to hope that my queen dies before Austria's.

 

[delpiero1234]

Really nice AAR. I too am playing the Angevin Union, and for the record I love the purple.

Thank you, Psion!

It's interesting to see how differently our games have gone. I started building boats for an assault on England right off the bat, and so formed the union much earlier. But elsewhere, I've mostly been diplo-annexing my way through. I've befriended Castile, become the HRE emperor and focused on getting established in South Africa, India, and the East Indies right away.

That's what I like about VeF- every game will be different Your strategy of becoming the emperor of the HRE sounds good. I have to try that in the future.

This has payed off very well though, since I make 490 ducats a month in trade alone (I could do better if I wasn't lazy and upgraded my fleets ever). Byzantium is my biggest rival, and has an alliance with a similarly massive Austria, Trebizond and Russia that stretches from The Alps to Kamchatka.

An "upgrade-ship" button would rock...

My total income is 1320 ducats. 528 ducats are from trade, 485 ducats from production and 160 ducats from tax. I currently 10 colonies simultaneously and still have a positive balance of 400 ducats.. I'd love to have more colonists but oh well..

I too am starting to burn out on this game. Though recently an interesting development happened that will keep me around for at least a little while. I recently lost the HRE emperorship when my king died at age 80 without a male heir, with only a little bit of imperial authority left before the crown becomes inherited. So now I have to hope that my queen dies before Austria's.

I think many games will come to this point. It's unfortunate but true.. I wish the game would remain interesting throughout the campaign but for me it has come down to paint the map purple by now. TIt's not challenging at all. The only thing that stops me from doing a WC is my ADM pool :ninja:

 

[DKM]

An "upgrade-ship" button would rock...

The devs are adding that in the next update according to the devdiaries.

 

[delpiero1234]

The devs are adding that in the next update according to the devdiaries.

That's good to know Looking forward to that feature, although it should have been in the base game..

 

[delpiero1234]

Chapter IX - Painting the World Purple​

This chapter covers the time from January 1627 to September 1668. The campaign got quite repetitive and it has basically come down to me painting the world purple - hence the title.
Basically all I did was build manufactories, spam colonies and fight lots of wars. But lets take a closer look:


In the early mid 20s of the 17th century, the Union was once again at war with Osman which simply refused to die. The goal of the war was to crush Osman and all its allies. It took the Union less than a year to occupy every single province owned by the Jalayirids which had honored the Osmani call to arms. The defensive forces lost battle after battle, only Tunisia held the upper hand against Tlemcen and so Louis XIII instructed an Angevin army to support the his subject.
The Jalayirids were forced to cede Ar-Raqqah, Erzincan and Hammah. Soon after, an Angevin army marched on Georgia and excellent reports arrived in the capital: Tlemcen had managed to push the Tunisians back with the help of the Union.
A year later, Tunisia lost five provinces to the Union which were given to Tlemcen after the war. Soon after the peace with the Tunisians, the Union made peace with Osman that lost a few provinces which were given to the Byzantines.

The Union also expanded heavily in India. Multiple wars were fought against the likes of Delhi, Golkonda, Marwar and Orissia. Of course, the Angevins triumphed every time and as a consequence the Union's influence over the Indian subcontinent became stronger.

In those 40 years, the Union completed the Imperialism idea group and unlocked Bureaucracy.
Completing Imperialism increased allowed the Union to core faster and more importantly the Union gained an additional colonist which was sent to South-East Asia. Military units were upgraded to more deadly models like the Wester Curassier.

Flanders had already colonized all of Australia and had begun colonizing South-East Asia before the Union did. More annoying though was the fact that Flanders had claimed the title of Defender of the Catholic Faith which was previously held by Castile. The Union sought to eliminate Portugal, a TPM in the New World, once and for all and declared a trade war on them but because Flanders was the DotF they became war leader.

The Union also established a colonial nation in Austria called New Dover and began colonizing Siberia.*

Another highlight of those forty years were the integrations of Tlemcen and Byzantium into the realm. Both countries had been subjects of the Union for over 150 years and after their integrations were complete, direct land routes connected Paris with Tunis in North Africa and Mysore in India. (This means none of those provinces are considered overseas territory).

The integration of Byzantium was completed on September 1st 1668 and the royal cartographer gave the King Louis XIV, his father had died a few decades ago, some new maps of the realm and the world. The world was purple.

Money has become a non-issue because I have more than 150k ducats. I underestimated the power of trading. The whole early game I made much more money through taxation and production but now trade has become my main income source.
Besides conquests there really hasn't been much else going on :mellow:
I plan on getting a direct land route from Paris to Kongo in the future and if I keep playing past January 1st 1700 then I want to get a direct land route from Paris to Siberia.

Cheers!


To be continued...

 

[v1989]

So, you have established a colony in Austria?

 

[DKM]

Here's a goal; tagswitch to a colony and break away while swallowing all other colonies.

 

[GreatUberGeek]

Create a land bridge from Paris to the colonies!
...
I don't care if it's not possible!

 

[delpiero1234]

So, you have established a colony in Austria?

Well, Flanders controls all of present-day Australia, but I've established a colonial national in that region.. I'll have to declare war on Flanders to conquer Australia.

Here's a goal; tagswitch to a colony and break away while swallowing all other colonies.

Thanks for the suggestion but VeF does not support tag-switching. As far as I know, all sorts of unexpected things can happen if you tag-switch with the console or do you mean I should release and play as one of my own colonial nations? I could do that without tag-switching but there is no way I could beat the Angevin Union as a colonial nation unless the AI is really, really stupid.

Create a land bridge from Paris to the colonies!
...
I don't care if it's not possible!

I wish I could do that then I'd never have to play EU IV with colonial nations again (they are so dumb..)

 

[DKM]

I meant press play while having selected them when you load up your save, not console tagswitching.

 

[delpiero1234]

I strongly believe that a World Conquest is possible in my current set-up even though I took not-so-ideal idea groups.
There are still roughly 200 years to be played and in those I might be able do a WC. I've never done a WC in EU IV before so this would be exciting for me
(And if I fail then I blame it on my choice of national ideas)

 

[galdor123]

Very interesting AAR, nice to see the Angevin Union. I agree though, at some point the game becomes boring, once you are the ultimate superpower.

 

[RepublicanIV]

I just read the whole AAR in two sittings and wow

Also, that shade of purple really is annoying. It should be darker, perhaps halfway between your current shade and Byzantium's.

By WC, do you mean you must have every single county, even the unpopulated ones, in VeF? The sheer amount of provinces may slow down colonisation.

When you become the superpower, it's fun to get a huge coalition and war all the things

Or just war everyone you have a claim on at once.

 

[delpiero1234]

Very interesting AAR, nice to see the Angevin Union. I agree though, at some point the game becomes boring, once you are the ultimate superpower.

Thanks galdor! I'm glad to hear that you found it interesting to read

I just read the whole AAR in two sittings and wow

Also, that shade of purple really is annoying. It should be darker, perhaps halfway between your current shade and Byzantium's.

By WC, do you mean you must have every single county, even the unpopulated ones, in VeF? The sheer amount of provinces may slow down colonisation.

When you become the superpower, it's fun to get a huge coalition and war all the things

Or just war everyone you have a claim on at once.

Well WC means that all provinces in the game are either owned by me or by my subject. I haven't had much time to continue the AAR lately but I plan to write another update later/tomorrow. I don't know if I will succeed and I will probably fail since the idea of doing a WC game rather late. I definitely would have picked different idea groups had I known that I want to do a WC.
I mostly try to avoid fighting the coalition because those wars are usually long and not very profitable.. but I agree that it's fun to go to war with pretty much the rest of the world once in a while.
Thanks for reading BTW!
Edit: Regarding the purple color: I won't change it again because the game is almost in the 18th century and there is not much left to play but thanks for the feedback. If you really dislike the color I suggest you post this in the VeF suggestion thread. Maybe the dev team will change the color in future versions of the mod

 

[delpiero1234]

World Conquest Attempt - Part I​

This chapter covers the time from October 1668 to October 1716. Let's see how close I can get to a WC!


After completing the integration of Byzantium and Tlemcen, the Union had a direct land route from Paris to India into the Union. The King's new goals were to continue the colonization of Siberia and to eventually connect Siberia with the Union's holdings in Finland. But in 1668 those plans seemed to be rather unrealistic and some people in the Union made in secret fun of their King for dreaming of a world where the Union controlled all those lands.
However, the Union's next target were Steppe Nomads south of Siberia. A war was declared on Manchu in which the Union conquered eight provinces. This upset neighboring Asian countries and the anti-Angevin coalition grew further.

The Papacy was dismantled long time ago but the Papal States kept relocating every time the Union annexed them. The King was upset and sought to destroy the Papal States again and so he declared war on the Papal Duchy. Poland became war leader and a bunch of HRE countries came to their defense including Frankfurt which ended as vassal of the Union.
Fryslan had to cede some of its territory in South-East Asia and as well as its remaining colonies in the Americas and Africa.

Novgorod was an ally of the Polish and so they naturally honored their call to arms. This turned out to be a major mistake after the Novgorodian monarch was notified that he was now a subject of House Normandie. This granted the Union multiple useful reconquest core casus belli because foreign powers had previously conquered most of Novgorod.
After the war with Poland came to an end, the King sent diplomats to the Hansa, the Union's only ally, to inquiry whether they were interested in becoming a vassal of the Union. The diplomat returned with good news: The Hansa had sworn its allegiance of the Union!

On July 20th 1680, Louis XV (3/6/3) was crowned King. He was said to be a skilled negotiator. The new King lacked a heir which was quite unfortunate but he was as bloodthirsty as his predecessors were and under his rule Mali lost a good number of provinces.
The Union declared war on Hanthawaddy and their allies in the September of 1681. Funny fact: All defenders combined had an army of 164.950 soldiers. The Union and its vassal field an army that was more than 7 times larger. Defeating them was a cake walk.

An unexpected reports reached the capital: 2.000 hostile troops had laid siege on Cagliari. Maybe they thought they could escape death by sailing all the way from India to Sardinia? How silly! Golkonda and Hanthawaddy had to cede territory to the Union in two peace deals.

After coring those provinces Delhi and the Union were suddenly at war again. The fifth Angevin Conquest of Delhi was fought against Dali, Ming, Shun Han, Liao, Manchu and of course Delhi. The campaign turned out to be a huge success.

Around the same time, Pius V of the Papal States was elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Interesting fact: The Papal States were an OPM and lacked any sort of army. Louis XV did not understand why the prince-electors elected Pius V as Emperor. He believed that he would have been the better choice but oh well!
Influence over Asia was increased by winning a war against Usegui, a Japanese daimyo.

Two wars were fought to reconquer Novgorodian cores. One against Muscoy and the other one against Beloozersk. The Union triumphed in both. Furthermore, over the next seven years, the Union forced Fryslan to cede all of its remaining colonies in South-East Asia to New Dover and annexed Norway.
It turned out to be a mistake to begin the construction of the Suez Canal and Kiel Canal and the King thought about abandoning those projects but his advisors convinced him not to (Those construction events are really annoying and since I don't have any monarch points to waste on those canals it will take much longer to complete them but I don't really need those canals anyways.)

The conquest of Sahel continued with another campaign against Mali which eventually agreed to give up six more provinces. More interesting was that in the April of 1710 La Louisianne had declared war on a Castilian colonial nation. Advised by the small council, the King decided to step in and a colonial war erupted because Castile came to the defense of its colony. Fernando IV von Schauenberg, King of Castile, was most angered when he was informed that all of his allies had refused to honor his call to arms! (AI got screwed by that 60 days call to arms limit).

Iberia was occupied by Angevin forces in no time at all. However, Louis XV orders were not to make peace before the provinces of Castile's trade company in the Hudson Bay area were under Angevin control. Roughly three years after La Louisianne had declared war, Castile accepted the Union's terms which stated that the Union received all Castilian provinces in the Hudson Bay area and La Louisianne became owner of a few provinces in colonial Canada.

A few months later after King Fernando IV von Schauenberg and the Angevin envoy signed the peace treaty, The Hansa was fully integrated into the Union.
Vasily IV, Prince of Novgorod, kindly asked the King to increase the Union's efforts to reconquer the Novgorodian cores. This was achieved by attacking one of Beloozersks's allies: Chagatai. Manchu became war leader which gave Louis XV the opportunity to grab a few of their provinces, too. This turned out to be one of the longer wars but it was very rewarding. Beloozersk and Manchu lost lots of provinces and in a separate peace deal Chagatai was almost completely annexed.

The world on October 21st 1716

I still have roughly 149 years left to conquer the world. It looks easier than it is because big blobs like Dali, Georgia and Hungary stacked ideas which increase core creation cost. Dali is too big to get vassalized so I'm not sure what I'll do with them. Maybe I can feed a few provinces with Moldavian culture from Hungary to my vassal Moldavia and then I might be able to vassalize them. I hope that works. Georgia on the other hand is Sunni and I can neither feed them to a vassal and conquering them would be too expensive..
In fact, it's really annoying that all the successor states of the Golden Horde like Muscovy and Georgia are now Sunni..

There are still four tags left in Africa (Mali, Ajuraan, Kilawa and Nubia). After I annex Delhi, I will control all of India. Australia is still under owned by a Flemish colonial nation and I still have lots of work to do in South-East Asia.
Flanders and Gelre own some provinces in present-day California.
Pretty much all HRE minor besides the Papal States are in a coalition against me so I'll have to find a way to annex them. Austria is the largest blob within the HRE and they hate my guts.

I know that most of the screenshots are war-related and that there hasn't been much story-telling lately but there really is not much to tell besides that the House of Normandie wants to conquer the world. Cheers!

 

[unmerged(576153)]

You are doing very well. Hungary really is a pain in the ass, I remember having to core a 5 base tax province for 230 admin with all the bonuses I had stacked, otherwise it would have been around 500. Your biggest problem is Eastern Europe. Maybe if you could get 2-3 Russian vassals to get conquer it all. I'm not sure, even with admin efficency, if it'll be possible to annex Eastern Europe beside truce breaking. China and Indochina are similar problems, but not that big.