Let's All Play Together - Community Nation Discovery

[Philadelphus]

This looks like a neat idea, though of course it would happen the day I'm leaving for vacation and won't be able to play for a few weeks. Oh well, maybe I'll catch the next one. At least I can watch what other people are doing.

 

[brtzknf]

It's an interesting kind of warfare down there - since basically everyone has only one fort for a good while you just need to siege that province and you have basically won the war/can peace out that ally. Nice change to Europe's drawn out wars

 

[Maldazar]

Nice idea! I will participate as well.

Some small hints that can help with the early game:

- There are 2 very nice decisions that you can take right from start if you have +1 stability (one giving -20% stab cost and some prestige and the other giving +5% stab cost and -1 unrest) so at least in my game I bought stability right on day 1 (only 85 admin because of -15% from governament and because of good leader you start with >100 admin).

- Second, after that I switched my governament (i actualy did this after my first war) from Tribal Kingdom (which gives +10% vassal income and -15% stab cost and +10% tech cost) to Tribal Federation, giving: 20% land force limit (very usefull early on to outnumber your neighbours) and +20% manpower, as negative this gives -1 relationship slot.. But honestly I think this is a LOT less bad then the +10% tech cost. Specialy because you will be getting the +1 diplo from your first nation idea anyway.

Anyway, these are just some small things that can help out the early game

 

[Casus_Belli]

I might have a go, for a suggestion for the future, Rewa Kantha, it has a cool flag, and is a poor Indian state, so it could be fun.

 

[shoki]

Nice idea.

My start so far:
got a godlike heir

Spoiler

who died some years later in a hunting accident New heir is 4/2/1...
and got some land

Spoiler

At the beginning i allied who i could, but dropped the aliances when they got attacked. Then i was able to ally Timbuktu and Bono (Bono has lots of troups for his 2province land). Kanem-Bornu,songhai, Air and Oyo started a coalition against me, but with some increased relations they dropped it in 1460.

My ruler died in 1465 and i got a 10year regency... During that regency several nations attacked me. Was able to white peace some, get Oyo as a vassal and annexed Air.

Spoiler

 

[Rabid]

I've been playing a few West African games lately and Zazzau is always scary early on with their uber general and military tech. I think that the region is a bit boring to play in though, due to the super low manpower provinces and the broadly religiously divided alliance blocks, every war has 4+ participants on both sides and you spend a lot of time at peace recovering or with truces everywhere you want to expand.

Great idea for a thread, as someone who mostly plays outside of Europe it's good to have new suggestions for fun games. For an easy alternative African game I suggest Mutapa; they recently got unique NIs and their huge gold income means they can easily dominate the region with mercenaries. Much like Zazzau they start with a very good monarch-general, though he has weak stats so you don't have the dilemma about using him to fight or not

I'm hoping that Buddhism gets looked at soon as the new system seems a bit punishing, I would really like to play some of the SEA Buddhist states but I want to wait and see if they will get some gameplay improvements re: Karma.

 

[Cragspyder]

My Zazzau flash AAR:


Before unpausing, here is my situation:

Rivaled by: Songhai, Oyo, Air

Kano, Katsina, Nupe are hostile to me.

Chose as my own rivals: Air, Katsina, Oyo

Day 1 Alliance with: Mossi, Benin, Dagbon, Dahomey

Merchants collect in only locations available.

Build 1 Infantry 1 Cavalry to get to force limit.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Start of the Game

After a few days:

Songhai got Mali, Air, Kanem Bornu and Kong as allies. Nightmare.

Air got Songhai and Yao as allies. Not bordering me so I ought to be ok from this quarter.

Katsina got Yao and Nupe as allies. Probably good for me.

Kano got Oyo and Mossi. Oyo got Bonoman and Kano. Nupe got Kanem Bornu and Katsina.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diplomacy

Begin with fabricating claim on Oyo, will start with them and then move counterclockwise, skipping Songhai. Improving relations on allies of my rivals that are not also my rivals. Hopefully this will help due to opinion penalty on offensive war calls.

Income is a mighty .08 ducks a month. I don’t think I can risk dropping fort maintenance or army maintenance at this stage.

Royal Marriages with all my allies. Probably a bad idea. Very tangled web of alliances… I very much doubt striking first is a good idea.

I should have changed to Tribal Federation, since Tribal Monarchy is terrible, but I am allied with 4 people already. It’s not as if I could support more troops anyways.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WAR!

First local war declared is KANO, Oyo, Mossi vs KATSINA, Nupe, Yao in Sept. 1446. Could be good, Mossi is my strongest ally, but war involves all 5 of my neighbors. I hope I can take advantage of this.

Two more wars were declared in the west without me being notified. TIMBUKTU, Mali vs MACINA, Kong, Jenne and BONOMAN, Dahomey vs KONG, Songhai, Macina.

Kano + co are losing the war. Bad for Mossi, but good for me, possibly.

Oct 1447, Kano is being sieged down and Bonoman’s army was stackwiped by Songhai. Neither will help. Time to strike at Oyo! I will have no help either, unfortunately.

Before I go, I get a last minute alliance with Kanem Bornu (at 5/4 Diplo relations now), which should protect me against Songhai somewhat. Will break the alliance with Dahomey if/when I take Oyo and then wait for Royal Marriage to expire. I knew it was a bad idea!

Amina is already a General, so might as well use her. She may die…but hopefully it will be worth it.

Beat Oyo 7 to 6, got military access into Mossi so I could stackwipe them. Sieging down now, but don’t really want to vassalize them since I’ll get dragged into the war.

BONOMAN vs KONG ended, seems to have been a white peace or at least no land changed hands as far as I can see.

KANO vs KATSINA ended. Kano was full annexed! I consider forming a coalition against them, but decide against it. This leaves me free to annex part of Oyo (Moshi) and vassalize the rest. New Rival is Nupe.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recovery

Now I have 6/4 Diplo relations! Not the smartest of moves on my part, but if I’m going to have 10% income from vassals I might as well use it, and it did give less AE. Set country focus to Diplo to somewhat make up for it. Force limit is up to 9 and an extravagant 0.34 ducks of income!

Dahomey and Dagbon will accept vassalization now! I also hadn’t considered as a possibility. I guess I won’t be breaking those alliances after all!

Unsurprisingly, TIMBUKTU vs MACINA ended with Macina losing 3 provinces to Timbuktu and all her alliances. She will probably be gone next war, but at least Macina wasn’t the first nation to die. That was a dumb war, Kano.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WAR! again

Called to war by Mossi over Kong. Kong is allied with Songhai! This is probably a very bad war to get involved in, since Mossi JUST lost a war….but we can give it a shot I suppose.

The epic Queen saw me thru the initial battle with Songhai, while Mossi took on Kong. Two solid victories, but manpower is low. Time to siege down Kong really fast. While I sieged their capital, Mossi left their forces exposed to Songhai, the fools. Even emergency reinforcements with 5000 men and the Queen herself could not recover the battle. But, miracle! Benin joined the war on our side after the fact (since they directly border me through Oyo it must have nullified the distant war malus). We should have no issues now. Kong is done and Songhai shall follow. Sadly the Queen was killed in one of the battles. My new monarch is 1/4/0. Terrible!

The greedy bastards in Mossi took Kong and two provinces from Songhai, and gave me nothing! I had no claims, but regardless it was rude and uncultured. They will probably eventually pay.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Traitors!

After the war, I immediately vassalized Dahomey and Dagbon. Oyo is disloyal, of course, but I haven’t improved relations with them yet. Went to Military Tech 3.

I am again called to war, this time defensively as Timbuktu, Mali and Jenne attack Mossi. My manpower is shot, my god-queen is gone and my vassals are disloyal. I must decline. This is my revenge on Mossi for screwing me in the peace deal before. I just hope Mali and Timbuktu doesn’t get too strong…..

All this by 1456! Let me know if you want me to continue, I don't want to take over the thread.

 

[FieldMedic]

Zazzau eh? Sounds like fun, I'll have to give it a go! This is a great idea by the way.

 

[zdennis96]

As a follow up to my previous comment, my run ended around 1530 for two reasons. First, Mossi, my greatest and strongest ally, decided to rival me out of the blue. Once the pan-anamist alliance had dissolved, the muslim tribes picked Mossi apart quickly before goin after me.

My biggest mistake this run was colonizing. I recieved in event around 1480-90 that gave me 300 population in an uninhabited territory next to me. I recommend anyone with this event to not take it. I gained a piece of land with 3 development for the cost of about 500 gold in loans (it was about 4 gold a month to support the colony). This drastically slowed down my conquests.

Also, for the first time I made a March. Since converting Sunni provinces takes forever, I decided to vassalize and make a march Air. My rational is that I don't plan on integrating them for a looong time (until i have a good conversion speed), so in the mean time I might as well buff them.

In the end, I got to 150 development and a score of 1. It was fun.

 

[zedyue]

Wish this had been a south east asia country since I've got a hankering for that and would like 20 other people posting hints as they go but oh well

 

[Morwys]

Nice idea, I'll start my run as soon as I get home.

 

[alpaca]

Fun idea, I'll give it a go. I usually play non-ironman on normal AI difficulty, no bonuses, no lucky nations. I admit to having reload-scummed when Amina died during a battle during a war where I desperately needed her like 15 years into the game. My second ruler was a good 4/4/2, and my current monarch and his heir are pretty great at a total of 13 monarch points each (Muhammad I only had an average claim, but I'm not complaining).

Current status in 1500 shortly after having subjugated all of sub-saharan Africa except for Timbuktu (whom I don't currently have a CB on).

Spoiler

I played the early game getting some allies, then attacked Katsina, vassalizing Nupe in the process. The AE was handled by allying other neighbours and improving relations. 4 diplomats make this really easy, although only having 3 diplo relations hurts. I was lucky with my generals, so even after Amina died I had pretty decent 3 shock generals at my disposal. Next, I went on to conquer Kano and take some provinces from Kanem Bornu. Next war was against Oyo, conquering 3 of their 4 provinces and vassalizing Yao. You get the picture. From 1485-1500 I was pretty much in constant war, having switched from proper regiments to mostly mercs and vassal levies, and subjugated the rest of the area.

The next steps are getting the admin ideas to get rid of the tribal government (recently got to tech level 4). I'll also need a peace period to reduce my autonomy and recover my manpower. After that, westernising. I became Sunni 30 years or so ago by submitting to Rebel demands at 0% rebellion status, which feels like an exploit, but what the hell. Not sure where I'll go after that - I'll definitely conquer Timbuktu at some point and I might pick up Exploration and turn this into a colonization game.

 

[tobias.mb]

Very nice thread. I like your background Info; always nice to learn something new.
My run so far:

Spoiler

Spoiler

I started the game with a day 1 dow on Nupe with a mission and completly annexed them. After that I allied Mossi and 2 animist minors and declared a war on Kano, which only had 1 ally - Oyo.
I vassalized both in that war and had to recover afterwards because it cost me my entire manpower and I had to take a few loans.
I actually had to defend both Mossi and Air against Songhai once after that. But with God Queen Amina at the Front I made short work of them. Though it did stall my own expansion I managed to snatch Katsina in an opportune moment when they had answered a CTA from Macina to fight Mali + Songhai and a bit later Kanem Bornu (they were only allied to Macina, which wouldn't answer the CTA because they were beeing trashed by songahai at that time)
Macina was actually almost dead once (conquered by Songhai). Fortunatly during my 2nd War against Songahai they got large enough WE for rebels to defect again.
With the Songhai sultante severely weakened I got ambitious and backstabbed both Mossi and Air to vassalize them. Since Mossi was also allied to Benin I got them as well.
The last thing I did in that game was just finishing a war against Songhai, in which I took a few provinces and vassalized Bonoman.

I definitly got very lucky with my rulers. Amina lived till 1480 and her heir is a 5-3-4. And when she died I had rather high AT so the general I hired to replace her was a 3-3-4-1 (Though that guy is no longer around at the time of the screenshot). Shortly before this screenshot my (crap) heir died hunting and was quickly replaced by a WIH event giving me a 5-5-5 daughter.

I have already reformed my government (I took economic ideas) and soon I can westernize. Portugal is only 2 techs ahead of me .
Oh also: when I reformed my government I was at -2 stab so I decided to make the best of it and no-cb Kongo. In a second war I vassalized the rest of them and gave back the provinces I took in the first war (I didn't want to deal with rebels in unconnected territory.) However this might have been a slight mistake; since I also asked them to convert so until now they have always been above 50% LD. But they have some Grassland Provinces so I couldn't resist

I definitly had a lot of fun in this game up to this point (though I have now kind of run out of enemies - hopefully Macina annexes Mali and becomes a new rival for me )

As tipps for anyone else who wants to give Zazzau a try:

1. After securing alliances immediatly dow Nupe with a mission. They shouldn't have allies at this point, so it will be an easy & quick war. Annex them completly.
2. Get allies! At the very least you need the strongest Animist nation Mossi on your side. In the beginning you stand no chance against Songhai and Katsina as well as Kanem Bornu are also very real threats. I found Air to be a good ally since they hated Songhai, Kanem Bornu and Katsina and were willing to help me against them. Benin is also an excellent ally; since they are rather isolated they will most likely not drag you into any wars. Other than those, the minor animist nations south of Mossi are good allies, since they will most likely not start wars of their own.
3. Help your allies. In the beginning your allies dying can very well mean your own doom. In fact I got my alliance with Air while they were beeing attacked by Songhai. But I wanted to prevent Songai from getting more powerful.
   
4. Only annex territory directly in the very beginning to quickly build up a powerbase. After that try to only vassalize. Most nations around you are small enough to be vassalized in a single war. Usually you can expand quicker that way. Not to mention, that you need adm points for your idea so you can reform. The revolts you get especially if you took sunni provinces are just not worth it imho.
5. Use some mercs. They are expensive which can be a problem, since you are dirt poor (You can't even afford a single advisor at the start). But since everything around you is arid or tropical, you will lose lots of troops to attrition otherwise. And you just can't afford to run out of manpower. You always have to be ready to defend yourself and your allies.
6. If possible try to attack while your target is already embroiled in another war. Nothing is better than a war, where you don't have to fight any battles!

 

[Reverend Belial]

I like this idea. I'm gonna have to get over my aversion to countries with generic sprites for a while I think. Zazzau here we come!

 

[net.split]

Got a little farther on my own game. Current progress:

Spoiler

The first war against Songhai wound up successful after I bolstered my forces with a couple mercenaries. Predictably, I got nothing out of the deal.

While recovering from that war, I fabricated some claims on Oyo and Nupe while starting the integration of Kano. Oyo fell quickly, having lost all its allies. Yao (with ally Air) attacked Kanem-Bornu, who was allied with Nupe. This worked out quite favorably; I launched the assault on Nupe as soon as the last claim finished fabrication. I wound up having to take Kanem-Bornu's capital before they would capitulate, but soon my southern borders were secure.

Dahomey accepted vassalization from Mossi before I could get them to +190, which was irksome. But the truce with Songhai was over, and I had claims on both Hausa provinces. As I was maneuvering back into position from Kanem-Bornu, Mossi launches another attack and drags me in.

Determined not to let this one end like the last, I first occupied the two claim provinces, then marched directly on Gao. Sadly, Queen Amina perished during the sieges, succeeded by her capable but peace-loving heir Muhammed (2/5/2). Once the siege on Gao finished, I took a separate peace with Songhai in order to grab my claim provinces. I wasn't about to let Mossi walk away with another freebie.

Unfortunately I had no good opportunities to vassalize here as I would have been dragged into additional wars. So, that's a lot of Admin points being drained coring, and I'm still two techs away from Ideas! To help fix this, I hired my first cabinet member (Admin type). I also humiliated every rival I went to war with, giving me bonus points from PP.

Now it's time to hunker down, get some manpower back, finish coring, and get the ideas going. Once separatism is gone in the Sunni provinces I'll try getting some religious rebel sentiment so I can switch over (the majority of my provinces are Sunni at this point anyway).

I managed to just surpass Amina's historical conquests before she died, and the consolidation of Hausa territory from the final war she was involved in has secured Zazzau's position as the dominant force in the eastern half of the region. Mali just recovered from a devastating civil war, and Macina and Timbuktu can't decide if they want to expand or decline. Air has declared me as rival; they aren't really scary, though. Even when combined with Yao, they're no match for me and Benin, much less if Mossi joins the fun. I'll expand north and east once I've recovered from all these draining battles.

 

[Noel84]

I have two suggestions for the next:Kazan and karaman.
Reason:Read their God-Tier traditions and ideas and see for yourself. They're not on Prussian/ottoman levels of OP, but I'd place them both at equal to or better than france.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I was able to march + feed Songhai, Kano, Mali revolter tag to have 75% of west Africa and westernize by 1511, but I tried to stay animist. That's terrible, it constrains you into religious or humanist and you want a reform group. Also, march feeding takes too long to annex later, spain drops 30 regiments at once sometimes so you need all of your bodies up to date, and thus you need that gold. Going Sunni will progress much, much faster than alternatives.

I'll give it another go soon.

 

[Cragspyder]

As a follow-up to my post above, I was having a really fun game unti, miraculously, Timbuktu and Katsina got 3 (!) military techs ahead of me.

Needless to say they allied with each other, I was immediately full occupied and lost 8 provinces and Benin (who was my vassal) at the time.

Can someone explain to me how one gets 3 military techs ahead in Sub-Saharan tech group by 1517, I only spent about 200 points on General rerolls which surely can't account for this stupidity.

My heirs after Amina were terrible, and I even had to fight a civil war since two heirs died to the "heir killed during a feast" event, and so my legitimacy was terrible. But I didn't spend any extra military points even then.

Regardless, utterly absurd and pretty much wrecked my whole day on top of that.

 

[myrsl0ken]

Just a quick question: If I manage to hold out on converting to Islam until I can take that awesome religious conversion speed decision at admin tech 8, will I keep it after converting?

 

[juckil]

My advice: DONT REFORM THE GOVERNMENT!
You mentioned that hard mode consists of taking Exploration or Expansion, and leaving the government reformation for later. However if you took one of those then you'd do pretty darn well for yourself, and could colonize the Ivory Coast to dominate trade.

You should stay as a tribal government, as they are some of the most underrated types in the game. For example, the tribal federation gives you +25% forcelimits and manpower at the cost of -1 diplo slot until you become empire level. It costs 100 admin points to flip to another tribal type, so do that instead of reforming. As long as you don't have one of the bad ones that give +10% tech cost, you'll be golden.