Let's Do A Suicide Run Sicily - A MMU Gameplay AAR

[kriggus]

Chapter 1. The Setup.​

Country: Sicily
Starting Date: 1399
Mod: MMU 1.26 with some own minor modifications

A new year, a new AAR, my second try. My last attempt ended in its very beginning approximately 6 months
ago. You see, my motivation to play EU3 in general and MMU in particular sank like Vasa itself when I discovered
how the idea-system in MMU worked... Not really as i thought and absolutely not compatible with my grand
plans. However, I do want to write an AAR before I die so here I am again.

Lets now focus on the nation of choice: Sicily!

And oh my! Can we find a better starting location? In the middle of the Mediterranean surrounded by only
larger nations eager to take our island and never let it go. But it does not matter, it’s warm down there you
see. Sitting indoors writing this with outdoor clothing on, I must say, if I only were there... Anyway this is the,
most likely short and miserable may I add, story about when Sicily tried to conquered the world and claim the title
"the mightiest island of all islands ever seen"! And this with all settings set to normal accordingly to the
picture underneath.

Regarding other rules and game-play goals, look here:

- I shall not cheat, no reloads bla bla, you know the standard rambling.
- Build the Sicilian Armada and conquer the mightiest island there ever was, after us of course. Onwards to Britain!
- Create a rich trade nation of the tiny and very poor olive tree inhabited volcano hill that I’m now ruling.
- Colonize something somewhere sometime.
- That's it, I have no more specific plan or strategy as it is, please help me...

So again please feel free to give advice throughout the AAR, especially since I've never played a MMU game in
the Mediterranean region before. To help you figure out something smart, take a look at the known world map while
I prepare the next update. GL HF!




Click the image or this text for a full size view!

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Contents.

- Chapter 1. The Setup. (viewing now)
- Chapter 2. Sicily 1399 AD.
- Chapter 3. The Sardinian War.

 

[kriggus]

Hmm, the pics seems to resize when I post, any ideas why? Or is it a limit around 800px?

 

[Ashantai]

They do. You can post a link too if you want them bigger.

Either way, I love the map, and I'm interested to see how you go.

 

[scholar]

Either way, I love the map, and I'm interested to see how you go.

The map is beautiful, if slightly overdone.

I'm a bit curious to see how you're going to go about this though. Aragon seems to be a big challenge for Sicily, so is Naples and the Muslim states.

 

[morningSIDEr]

Ambitious goals but quite possible I think. I'm certainly interested in how you go about this anyway, consider me subscribed.

 

[Derahan]

this seems very interesting, and i'm awed by that map of yours

 

[kriggus]

Chapter 2. Sicily 1399 AD.​

First, before we start doing stupid things, let’s take a closer look at Sicily and what she has to offer. We control
three provinces, of which two are rather rich. Malta may not the richest island around, but who really cares?
Being this tiny, anything is welcome to join our realm. Our capital province Palermo is at least producing highly
valuable sugar, but it’s really the only thing going in our economy. We get about 5 ducats every month and a
fantastic 18 every year!

Ruling is Queen Maria I d'Aragó. She is slightly better then the average in-game monarch with ADM: 5, DIP: 6 and MIL: 7.
However being queen means she can’t lead armies, most unfortunately since she is talented in the art of war. Buying
commanders will also be very expensive for us this early. The good thing however is that we don’t need commanders
at all. Our “mighty” army and navy consists only of 2000 halberdiers and 8 ships. And the best part, our economy
struggles to support this. Keeping this in mind, my usual Europa Universalis strategy of warmongering might not be
wisest, at least for the next 150 years or so.

Now, let us look at our rather good set of staring ideas.

Being a on a small island without any real land army to speak of makes us rely completely on our navy. The two ideas
Seahawks and Excellent Shipwrights will therefor serve us very well. Not only does they save us from the terrible
“lacking naval interest” modifier which Magna Mundi throws at nations with less then two naval ideas. Excellent
Shipwrights is also a perfect long term investment, reduced Tech Cost and rising the naval forcelimit. Seahawks
is of course excellent for our galley based navy for obvious reasons.

The prestige bonus from Patron of the Arts will on the other hand help our merchants succeed, although ideally any
of the three real trade would be better.

And yes there it is, our DomesticPolicies... Not very good, I will work my way towards Market Economy and Plutocracy
during the first 100 years, choosing trade ideas along the path. I will try to do this while building a stronger navy that
can defend our island, and when opportunity arise, maybe seize some of the other Mediterranean islands.

Now let us play the game! First thing to do, expand while we can! Sardinia lack allies and is probably among the few
we outnumber. So we declare war with Sardinia, taking a 3 stability and 2 infamy hit due to good relations and lack
of a casus belli. I believe it’s worth it in the long run if we manage to take Cagliari. Note that we are allied with
Aragon from start, we will soon see if they join us or not.

Next update will be about this war, see you after the war!

 

[Derahan]

Ohh interesting, a war with sardinia!

Now Sicily doesnt have the best starting position but as you mentioned, they dont have that nasty naval modifier!

 

[morningSIDEr]

Keeping this in mind, my usual Europa Universalis strategy of warmongering might not be
wisest, at least for the next 150 years or so.

So you type whilst instantly declaring war (which I'm glad to see, I always prefer lots of warmongering myself!)!

Your sliders aren't great but at least you have a bit of quality from them. As for the declaration of war against Aragorn, could you not have insulted them a few times before declaring war, thus avoiding any penalty for good relations (I know very little about MMU, perhaps the good relations penalty was entirely unavoidable, in which case ignore my ramblings)?

 

[kriggus]

So you type whilst instantly declaring war (which I'm glad to see, I always prefer lots of warmongering myself!)!

Your sliders aren't great but at least you have a bit of quality from them. As for the declaration of war against Aragorn, could you not have insulted them a few times before declaring war, thus avoiding any penalty for good relations (I know very little about MMU, perhaps the good relations penalty was entirely unavoidable, in which case ignore my ramblings)?

Well Aragon is allied with me and not Sardinia, or Sardinia is not controlled by Aragon if that's what thought. I was rather unclear in the text which easily could be misunderstood, fixed now thought. Sardinia is free and without allies. That's why I want to do it fast, before they get any strong ally

 

[TonyJoe]

I've never played MMU but this looks cool. I hope you get to form Italy someday.

 

[Ashantai]

I like this. Unusually for a gameplay AAR you've taken a lot of time with the pictures and text to create a nice flow. Congrats!

 

[Kroisistan]

Cool, Sicily. I've had a successful MMU Sicily-->Italy game, it's a fun country to start with. Once you've destroyed Naples, you can survive indefinitely. The trick is to scorch Messina, get Naples to bring their giant army across the strait, let it suffer attrition, then block the strait and engage.

Sardinia is a bold opening move; I hope Naples doesn't come knocking in the meantime. Are you going to ditch PotArts while you're small and stability costs nothing? I've had success with Nat'l Trade Policy in its place.

 

[scholar]

Good luck! The AI often takes advantage of small countries right when they go to war.

 

[kriggus]

Chapter 3. The Sardinian War.​

We just declared war on Sardinia towards our forces now sails. The Stability has as a result drooped down to -3,
but as a small state we should recover quickly. These offensive measures where unfortunately lacking a good cause
according to our ally Aragon, so they dishonor the call of arms, putting our alliance to an early end. This is somewhat
worrying since Sardinia is one of their core provinces and we all know how an Aragonian offensive would end.

The time without allies is however short, both The Papal State and Urbino offer alliances immediately after. We accept
them both gladly, in particular the one with The Papal State. They are big enough to both intimidate and protect
against our most immediate threat Naples. Know that Naples consider entire Sicily as her core provinces. Entering
an alliance with both the Papal State and Urbino will however turn out to be a mistake, as you will discover later.

Next move is to undertake our trade ambitions, starting by moving the slider towards Market Economy. The change
passes without nasty events, but without anything near trade favoring policies or ideas to start with, the journey remains
very long.

By the 4th November 1399 we win the Battle of Sardinia and proceeds by laying siege to Cagliari, one very long siege as
it turns out. It will take a remarkable 1019 days before the garrison gives in. The long siege is however a bit self-induced,
our army is outnumbered by the garrison the first year or so... So we make no progress at all during that time. 1000
extra men is sent to Sardinia when this miss is discovered.

We also establish a Royal Marriage with Castille in an effort to later create an alliance, something that never succeeds
though. We accept a proposal from Ubrino though, bringing royal ties to our already established alliance. Three
advisers suited for our naval dependent nation is also hired. Namely two level three Naval Advisers and one level two
Mint Master.

The best advisers I could find.​

Though in war, our problems does not come from it, but from pirates. For you who are unfamiliar with the Magna Mundi mod,
Barbary Pirates are ferocious, being a real pain in the ass for all christian nations along the Mediterranean coast. We are
a regular target for pirate raids causing nasty provincial and global modifiers. On 23th July 1402, when the second Barbary
Pirate attack occurs, and all our provinces suffer from Uncontrolled Piracy, we decide enough is enough and invest in a
temporary Limited Coastal Defense Plan.

While writing this update I discovered that the this 'defense plan' was temporary. There exist a decision what does the exact
same thing, but is permanent instead. I simply confused them. This might explain the insane piracy problems I still struggles
with 30 years later, really extreme...

Piracy activity during 1402. ​

Anyway, after the 1019 days long siege of Cagliari, we control Sardinia. So we have finally accomplished what
we wanted, Sardinia is ours!

The war summarized right after the annexation of Sardinia.​

By annexing Sardinia we accuse 8 infamy, something that trigger our relatives aboard to react.They send usA Friendly
Warning, advising against our aggressive behavior in the international scene. An advice Sicily intend to follow, but fails
with ^^. In defense for my future deeds I may add that the wars was against my will.

After controlling Sardinia for a year the Renaissance spreads to the island, making it our first enlightened province,
hurray! Though piracy start terrorizing Sardinia just months after the war. It is simply a sad truth that all our provinces
are subject to serious piracy, constantly...

A year later, in February 1404 AD, The Papal State Declares war on Ubrino, both are our allies. We decide to follow
a morally correct but unwise path by taking the defender Ubrino's side. Only one month later, we are attacked by Naples
joined by Provence and Tuscany. We now find ourselves vastly outnumbered, without capable allies. Let's hope we
prevail at sea for our tiny land army won't...

The status of our current conflicts the day Naples declared war. Note that
our ally Ubrino does not join the second war even though we sacrificed
ourselves for their cause.​

All for today, GL HF guys while you enjoy MMU/EUIII till I'm back again!

 

[morningSIDEr]

Those piracy modifiers are truly nasty. The current wars seem worrying. Hopefully you can defeat your enemies at sea as you've said, as on land I expect them to triumph. At least you have Sardinia now though!

 

[kriggus]

Okay guys, need some advice regarding piracy in MMU. How on earth do I stop it? Or at least keep it down to a manageable level? My average income is like around 2 because of all modifiers...

 

[Chris Taylor]

Okay guys, need some advice regarding piracy in MMU. How on earth do I stop it? Or at least keep it down to a manageable level? My average income is like around 2 because of all modifiers...

Unless you specialise out the wazoo it's not going to go away, but it can be kept to a manageable level by:

- Having Limited or Extensive National Anti-Piracy Plan
- Having Limited or Extensive Provincial Anti-Piracy Defences in all coastal provinces

These two measures will have the greatest impact on the level of piracy you experience.

Lesser (but still important) measures are:

- Having positive stability
- Having naval NIs
- Employing a naval advisor
- Having an Anti-Piracy Act

Because you're a Mediterranean nation you will also be liable to experience Berber pirate raids and events. You can try to buy off or cooperate with the piratical nations (Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Tripolitania and Mameluks) to lessen the Berber pirate attacks, or endure it and be resigned to their occasional raids. When you get more powerful you can try to vassalise the Berber nations and eliminate it entirely.

This is something you really need to examine in the manual to understand the possibilities and tradeoffs.

Enacting maximum anti-piracy measures will tend to strangle trade, income, and naval force limits. So you want to strike a balance between making life difficult for pirates (but not overly difficult for your own maritime trade).

 

[unmerged(90806)]

First, your AAR is graphically beautiful. Well done!

As for your strategy... well... taking Sardinia was the right thing to do I guess, although losing Aragon as an ally means you need a strong fleet, strong enough to fight... well, Aragon.
Your choice of allies is questionable at best. Good luck with the wars. Fingers crossed your rising war exhaustion will not encourage Aragon to join in.

As for piracy. You are exposed to two systems: the regular piracy and the Berber piracy. Chris Taylor's advice and his suggestion to check the manual should be followed.

As regards the regular piracy: I'd go for either national limited plan or - imo less crippling - limited defences in all your provs and observe the situation (preferably while at peace, war seems to attract more piracy). If piracy is manageable (I mean rare rampant levels; uncontrolled piracy is fine), I'd stay like this. In my Papal AAR I have no national plan only provincial defences; advanced in CoTs, naturally, no naval NIs, and I can live with that. I think naval NIs and naval advisor (one is enough) should also help mitigate piracy.

The Berber piracy opens up interesting opportunities. As a small state, not allied with Por, Cas or Ara, you might try out colluding with them. There's the dreaded 'Big Mess' event, but as long as you can handle stability hits and severe decrease in relations with other Med powers, you can actually profit from Berber piracy. That's what I did early (and early every penny counts!) in my Papal States game, but when I grew bigger, I decided it could be too risky.

So now let us know how these apparently disastrous wars went.

 

[Rabid]

I never use national anti-piracy plans unless I absolutely have to. Conversely, I always put limited anti-pirate measures in every province, and often put large ones in or adjacent to significant provinces such a CoTs and capitals, depending on how annoying pirates have been and how much I can afford the cost of implementing anti-pirate policies. Your naval ideas and advisers will help you deal with the pirates, but for the most part there isn't much you can do to prevent them from harassing you.

I agree with Gabor - definitely try allying with the pirates, if you're small and playing a low-aggression strategy then the penalties you can run into aren't too harsh and the benefits can be significant in terms of cash!