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Jan 1, 2007
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Once again, I would like to apologize for procrastinating this for such a long time, and to express how bad and sorry I feel about it. I played my part of the game (1415-1424) 1,5 month ago, the results of which you will be able to see in this AAR. Hope it is enjoyable - if not because of the writing quality (which, on my part, won't contain things like plots/characters/etc), then because this 9-year long game was a very enjoyable one for me, and among the most 'intense' I had ever played before.

The military campaigns of Jan Zizka of Trocnov

I start the game at 1415 - we've decided 1419 would be too late, with Zizka's death coming just 5 years later. So, what is it we begin with? A moderately rich country in Middle Europe, with some 10'000 men under the brilliant (5-5-6) command of General Jan Zizka z Trocnova stationed in Praha - the capital of Bohemia. We spend half of our (enlarged to 599 ducats) treasury on promoting Tax Collectors - I feel that even with a 'military' game like this, they will be needed, if we want the results of our reign to last longer than the life of Zizka.

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As our relations with Hungary are still very good, we ask for military access through their territory - we will certainly need it later - perhaps it would prevent from attacking us once the Hussite events break in? We also claim the throne of Austria, who we have Royal Marriage with. We want a CB on them, because I have a certain goal in my Bohemian game: to prevent the Big White Blob from forming. Another goal is to enable Bohemia to become a formidable power later, through the diplomatic annexations of their weaker neighbours - like Bavaria. That's why we decide to declare war on them - no CB, but who cares? 4 BB isn't that much. We quickly destroy their army trying to fend off our attack, siege their provinces, and by October of 1416 Bavaria becomes a vassal of ours, giving us also Ansbach.

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This will come in very handy in the upcoming war against the Habsburgs, as we want to have more than one direction of attack. We move Zizka's army to Ansbach and order to recruit another one in Praha, when...

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Good. This will save us the stability hit. We are still allied to Hungary, Luxembourg, Croatia and Siebenburgen - who we ask for help against the evil Germans. Tha Habsburgs are allied to Wurttemberg and Milan, who quickly start besieging Ansbach - and, despite their numerical superiority (22'000 to my 8'000), are repelled with ease. While another army arrives, this time from Mantua (another habsburg ally), we withdraw Zizka - another such battle might be dangerous, given the odds being again in favour of our opponents. Soon we take Ostmarch from Austria and, using Zizka's brilliant leader values, destroy their army trying to take over Presburg. We start sieging their other provinces and notice that Hungary already controls Tirol. Damn. We'll have to take it later. By the beginning of January, 1419 we have a peace treaty signed with Austria - ceding us Ostmarch, Steiermark and Salzburg.

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We give it all a second thought, though. It's 1419. We need to destroy Austria. BUT we don't want to rack up BB points too quickly. We can't wait for the truce to expire though, as Zizka will die after a few months from that point. That's why we decide to attack Austria now - they don't even have an army, which will make their destruction easy as pie. Their allies may pose more of a problem, but once we get rid of Austria, the alliance leader, we will get those pesky Italians and south Germans off our back.

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It was just as predicted - within a year the war ended, with Austria giving us Tirol and becoming our vassal. We had no problems crushing the invading Mantuan, Wurttembergian and Milanese armies - Zizka's stats come in handy. In September 1419, I think, we got the Hussite events, and a new leader - Prokop Holy - appeared at our disposal. His siege value (5-5-2-1) will be much needed - half a year earlier we were DoWed by the monstrous alliance of Poland, Lithuania and Brandenburg!

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The relations we have with our neighbours are a catastrophe - all neutral (-50 to +30) or negative. Neither this, somehow, nor our religion doesn't disturb Mantua, Baden and Wurttemberg to ask me to join their alliance - to which I concur. Any alliance is better than none, especially in a situation like mine.

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Let us go back to the campaigns themselves! Zizka and Prokop are directed north - our first goal here is to destroy Brandenburg, the weakest of our enemies in this war. This goal we fulfil without much effort or losses, at the same time repelling all invasions of Lithuanians (must they always use armies as large as 30'000 troops?!) and Poles, and retaking Silesia - the only province, control of which we had lost to them during this conflict. By August of 1421, Brandenburg had become our vassal, giving us also the province of Kustrin. We then were ready to concentrate on the offensive in Poland - taking Krakow, Gniezno and Poznan by 1423, and besieging other provinces. We turn down all Polish requests of peace - we are set to crush them completely and vassalize them, but...

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***
The first of two parts of the Zizka AAR. Hope you guys like it :). I'll write and post the second part tomorrow in the late afternoon, hopefully.
 
Great start, strong gains, and yes, I did enjoy it...just a lil bit :D (nah, alot!)

Good to see you went out hard and pulling off some great victories to boot and its also good to hear that its been one of your best games :cool:
 
Last year...

The situation was looking a bit grim. We were at war with a plenty of German minors, and a strong Poland plus Lithuania. What's more, Pommern, together with the whole of the Hanseatic League plus Prussia to declare war against us a week after Hannover did. Therefore, unfortunately, in order to not become overrun with zillions of troops German minors tend to have, we had to back away from the successful war against Poland, taking only Wielkopolska and Poznań. Looking back at it, I think I should have fought till the end, and vassalised Poland. This way, I would avoid that 2BB and would get a strong vassal (and possibly ally in the future - but that would be for the AI to sort out) to the north.

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But I did as I said: I decided to take the two Polish provinces. This, as it proved later, wasn't a good move at all - very soon about 78'000 German troops were swarming in Wielkopolska, trying to take it over. Thankfully, in such a way the main part of the Prussian, Mecklemburgian, Pomeranian etc. forces were occupied, and I could send my brilliant leaders into enemy territory: Żiżka, our main hero, through Sachsen, to try and besiege the capital of the alliance leader - Hannover. I was hoping to get rid of at least them in this way. Prokop Holy was sent to Pomerania, to destroy the (not so very, as it proved) small armies sitting there, to upgrade our war score. A similar tactic was taken by Żiżka, who destroyed all enemy armies that came into the range of his charge.

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With a War Score of about 15% to our advantage, Hannover's alliance accepted a White Peace - and Żiżka was quickly redirected to Bremen, which province he besieged and took by mid-September 1424, enforcing the vassalisation of the city-state. He then proceeded to Mecklemburg, easily destroying the freshly recruited army sitting there - all in order to get a White Peace with them.

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Thus, the last war in Żiżka's life has ended - no later than a week after signing the treaty with the Hanse, on October 12, 1424, Jan Żiżka of Trocnov has passed away. He had been one of the greatest generals the 15th century has seen, making Bohemia one of the most significant regional powers. Whether the situation will last like this, history will show...

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***
As you can see, I haven't really conquered a lot of new territory. I wasn't even able to annex Austria - there was too much work to be done with the northern guys attacking us. I only hope that the AI isn't too stupid (oh, naive me) and doesn't screw all this up. I ended up with a Bohemia 8 provinces bigger, with three vassals (Brandenburg was, unfortunately, eaten up by Wurttemberg. Damn them.) and a quite useful alliance - the minors like Baden, Papal States or Mantua tend to send lots of troops to help me :D. The BadBoy rating was, I think, very near to 20 - slightly above or below that. Nobody liked Bohemia, due to me having made a few stupid moves. But whatever. I'm very curious to see both how Skanderbeg is looking for his brother in Tibet and what Bohemia looks like after those 40 years...

Thank you for the game. Once again, it was one of the most intense attempts at EU2 I've had. And a highly enjoyable one, I must admit.
I'm eagerly awaiting Capt. Janszoon's part... :)
 
Cool! Did very well considering all those enemies you had. Good job!

As for Skanerbeg looking for his brother, that was just a joke, and everything went bad :( , but thats coming up...soon.
 
Very well done! I myself have taken an interest into the life of Jan Zizka, and having played the AGCEEP version of the Hussite wars, I know how tense Zizka's period is. And I've learnt to appreciate the wonderful leaders the Hussites get (Zizka and Prokop) to lead their armies.

I think you've done really well, more than doubling your territory against tough opponents. Let's hope the AI will manage to get rid of Austria before any bad inheritance events happen. Elimination of BWB is always a good cause to fight for!

Ye who are God's warriors...
:)
 
I too am quite pleased with what I've achieved in this game. Sorry to hear that everything went bad for Skanderbeg - I was hoping to hear of some handing the Ottoman ass to them on a plate ;).

And yeah, those leaders the Hussites get are really useful. Zizka, Prokop, Prokupek and some other ones come in really handy when playing as them in AGCEEP, that's for sure :D.
Somehow though, I have the feeling that the peace that I've achieved in the end won't last very long unfortunately, and that the AI will screw everything. I can just hope that the BWB won't form... :cool:
 
I know its a late and its poor....

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Had started making a movie for this (long ago), showing the glory of Skanderbeg, but the lack lustre performance made that somewhat silly.
 
If I understand well, you left Albania as a one-province minor with a few vassals, 20-ish BB and a large war. Great :D.
But it was fine, I see. I could never do well against the Ottomans as Albania, no matter how many times I tried. You've done a good job, definitely :).
So now, on to the next one?
 
Emperor_krk said:
If I understand well, you left Albania as a one-province minor with a few vassals, 20-ish BB and a large war. Great :D.
But it was fine, I see. I could never do well against the Ottomans as Albania, no matter how many times I tried. You've done a good job, definitely :).
So now, on to the next one?

No, I would never do that!




...I left em with 2 provinces (Rhodes also), a few vassals, 20-ish BB and a large war :D .
 
Interesting turn here. Lots of wars and Badboy, lots of vassals. Almost impossible for the AI to hold in the future, though they are notoriously bad at naval warfare, so Rhodos may save Albania indefinately as long as it doesn't revolt away.

Impressive nonetheless with such a small country. Good job!
 
TeeWee said:
Interesting turn here. Lots of wars and Badboy, lots of vassals. Almost impossible for the AI to hold in the future, though they are notoriously bad at naval warfare, so Rhodos may save Albania indefinately as long as it doesn't revolt away.
Well, Rhodes has a land connection to Asia Minor, so unless AlbaniaAI can keep it blocked, the Turk wil come a knocking...
 
Kelvin said:
Well, Rhodes has a land connection to Asia Minor, so unless AlbaniaAI can keep it blocked, the Turk wil come a knocking...
Does it? I'm pretty sure the only map where I've seen such a connection was MyMap... And I guess it can't really revolt away, with the Knights most probably already being on Malta...
So we'll have a dirt poor Albania in the 18th cent., owning Albania the province and Rhodes :cool:.
 
Muhammed Shaybani: The Eastern Sandstorm

(Its been a while since I played this so I can't remember some of my decision making or what happened in between, if I don't give details of war it is a fair assumption to make that I won it by overwhelming use of cavalry advantage with Shaybani on plains :) )

The Uzbeks are a collection of nomadic raiders and sheepherders for the most part, with very few urban centres. In other words a relic from the times of Genghis and his dogs of war, surrounded for the most part by other such relics such as Sibir, Nogai, Khazak and Golden Hordes, the Chagatai and the Timiruid Empire.







Domestically, the Uzbeks are totally land orientated, not a surprise seeing as the Aral sea is the only expanse of water known to us.
The Aristocracy holds unquestionable power, the country's power is drawn from the charge of horses not the tinkle of coin after all.
Unfortunately a selection of weak Khans had managed to while away any power the office once had, and the country was ruled by whichever chieftain could threaten, convince or bribe enough others to follow him, his authority only extending for as far as his tribe and allies could shoot a bow. Still such Decentralisation had benefits for the wars I would undoubtably be fighting.
Unsurprisingly we are not a bastion of innovation, but no matter, stability is of importance, technology is for weak and cowardly infidels.
The next slider could be preference smoked or unsmoked bacon for all the Uzbeks care.
The army is slightly offensive, something that should probably be rectified, after all only weak and decadent townies care about defence, and very very focused on quantity over quality, which suits our moderate mp nation and low LT nicely.

Finally, to finish summing up, the glorious Khan of the Uzbeks, dedicated Muslim Muhammed Shaybani




His 5 shock and 5 manuever should make for reasonably easy work around the deserts and plains of central asia and the 1 siege is an added benefit to make seiges go faster once the enemy's armies have been crushed like bugs.

Up Next: Peaceful trade and co-existance
 
Dr Bob said:
The next slider could be preference smoked or unsmoked bacon for all the Uzbeks care.

:D

Dr Bob said:
His 5 shock and 5 manuever should make for reasonably easy work around the deserts and plains of central asia and the 1 siege is an added benefit to make seiges go faster once the enemy's armies have been crushed like bugs.

Up Next: Peaceful trade and co-existance

:D

Nice intro!