My cup of coffee - Yemen will protect the Secret - VH

[Dominion]

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

After a rather difficult Nagaur campaign with only 28 years to spare before finishing Raja of the Rajput Reich we got back to our newest favorite region: Arabia.

Already played an AAR in vicinity as Hisn Kayfa to pick up Saladin's Legacy and This is Persia! and thoroughly enjoyed all changes and new tags

Cradle of Civlization and its accompanying free patch added a lot of value, entertainment and flavor.
No reason to miss out on it!

Rules for our campaign are as follows:

It will be played on Very Hard.

Goals are

Protect the Secret
As Yemen, prevent any European Nation from owning a Coffee-producing province in the Old World until 1700.

followed by

Arabian Coffee
Form Arabia and be the nation producing the most coffee in the world.

Readers can add secondary achievements whenever they wish as long as they explain one reference used to other readers

Since both achievements are easy (at least compared to our last run) we add another rule to the mix: Secondary achievements have to be picked up before we finish our run.

Fair words of warning: An attempt has been made.
An attempt to record and to prepare for streaming.
Recordings aren't presentable. Maybe they will be presentable once the run is finished for some kind of "this is where we lost focus" review, but for now let it be said that constantly explaining what you are doing seriously hindered our ability to plan and predict.

The run is a bit more advanced than last time where we played live most of the time, but it will be written as if it was live. Got our recordings to help us relieve what we felt and thought

It will not progress behind the scenes. We'll play either Consulate of The Sea, Strait Talk or Golden Horn while writing about our cup of coffee.

Once we hit live a decision has to be made.
Start recording again and hope for the best or throw all caution out the window and stream live.

The AAR will continue either way. More AARs will come either way.
They're fun and it's a lovely community. Can't leave that behind

Part 1 coming soon, maybe even tonight!

 

[Iwantdumplings]

Another Dominion run straight away? Hell yeah.

 

[Dominion]

We begin our run by learning more about our country.

"The old Rasulid dynasty still rule in Taiz (Me Tarzan, you Jane), but in the eastern half of the kingdom their former Tahirid vassals have begun to forge a state of their own."

Former vassals? Our ears are tingling

First things first, what do we need to form Arabia?

Mostly Mamlukian provinces. Halab is their most northeastern province. Could get critical of Ottomans manage to take them.
On the other hand, we'll be done protecting the secret in 1700. 121 years to defeat Ottomans will suffice.
Already planning too far ahead, like not even knowing a person's name and starting to name your children in your head.

Not that we'd ever do that.

>_>

<_<

Hey, who wants to look at mapmodes?

Most nations love us. What is this strange feeling? A warmth in our chest, the corner's of our mouth moving upwards... must be the flu.

Prepare for war!
Yemen starts with reconquest cb on all three of its direct neighbours.
Could attack north for 7k and a lvl1 mountain fort, Mikhlaf does look tasty.
Next one east are Rassids. They're being plagued by 6k pretender rebels while boasting 8k units themselves.
Level 3 mountain fort. Hate those things.
Aden is probably the strongest of them all with 9k units and a lvl1 mountain fort.

Hm.

Hmmm.

Need to revisit that later.

No discipline advisor, no (affordable) morale advisor, no diplomatic reputation advisor.
We are thoroughly unadvisable. Our nations is led by a 1/1/2 Zealot and a court full of monkeys.
Gotta turn him into a general to make room for his 4/2/2 heir.

We start looking at every possible nation north of us to check relations and options.

Whoops, went a bit too far north.
Hello there, buddy

Not a single alliance in sight, at least we learned that Mamluks love our school and Ottomans are almost willing to marry us.

That's new.
Always check everything before unpausing. Your first day is the most important.
We're a Sultanate. Almost forgot.
Additional income from vassals helps our style of play, later on it's gonna get replaced by something more useful.

We pick a mission to improve relations with Adal for +1 diplomatic reputation and unpause.

We ally Adal and marry Dawasir.
Adal gets an alliance for reasons we'll explain later, Dawasir gets a royal marriage because we talked ourselves into it.

We've effectively blocked our easiest expansion path.

New plan: Some nation east into Hadramut into Mahra into Hormuz.
Gonna need an actual navy for that. Can't take Hormuz without occupying their lvl1 island fort.

Rassids' pretender rebels move into Marid. We declare.

Mahrib is occupied by pretenders. Nobody gets ticking warscore.
Not sure if it helps, by why not. Not like we can do much.

Main reason for attacking Rassids was that they'll be lacking provinces to recruit in with pretender rebels walking up and down.

2 infantry units and one cavalry are being trained.

Rassids says no.
We realize we're sitting on one of the only 2 coastline provinces in the area.
Should have checked, should have looked, would have never expected them to actually attack.

Not good.
Recruit a mercenary in Zabid, infantry will finish production before Rassids arrive, Taiz and Mukha produce a unit was well.
Very good
They arrive before any of our mercenaries get their morale tick.
Very bad
A true rollercoaster of emotions. Panickingly we make our ruler and heir both into generals.

2/3/2/1? What an heir, a true beast, a

man who found his equal.

Was it rolls? Was it the gods? Was Shia's 5% morale bonus enough to take us out?
One thing's for sure, our second cav unit arrived late and it's dead, the deadest, cadaverific.

We flee into Mukha, Rassids plan to stackwipe us.
Is this the end for your narrator? Is this where it all comes crashing down?

NO! If years of running away have taught us anything it's that we're good at it.
We run into Taiz, Rassids stop chasing into Mukha and go for Taiz instead.

We flee into Mukha, they aim for Mukha, we flee for Taiz. Aden spectates mightily unimpressed.

Rassids sieges Zabid in April. Was it our charme that made them stop attacking? Our unmatched beauty? Our morale tick?

Yemen splits its army into 2 and our dance continues.

It doesn't continue.
Their movement is locked.
Why? Not sure. Really not sure. Moving onto Taiz instead of sieging Zabid or attacking us doesn't make much sense.
We'll get another morale+recovery tick before we clash with them.

Reinforce rate for enemy territory with bordering friendly territory was 50%, wasn't it?
Was it 10%?
They're in our nation and reinforce slower than us, that's what's important.
Morale regenerates to 1.71, they have... probably almost max, 2.6.
Their units are badly damaged compared to ours and we get mountains though.
Should be an easy battle.

We said "SHOULD BE AN EASY BATTLE" in case you didn't hear us, Fortuna.
Rolls haven't been kind with lots of zeros on both sides.
Hurts us more than them. Our initial morale was much lower, daily morale loss costs us more than them in relative terms.
7 against 0 during our final days saves us from hellish debt from the depths of hell.

From a guaranteed loss into a

victory

Close, but good. Almost no losses on our side, heavy losses on theirs. Time to chase.

Ah cmon, you're already recruiting?
Rassids flee into San'a, their cavalry unit follows them to make sure they'll have insufficient support during our next battle.
Err, if you wish?

WIPED!

7100 units sit on a lvl3 fort, not knowing what to do, pretender rebels walk into Marib.


But more on that later, it is our favorite time of the day.

Tea time

 

[stnylan]

@mackwolfe recently did a Rassid run. Will be interesting to see how you do in the same area.

 

[Dominion]

Phew, that was a lot of tea.

Back to our war. We left it in a state of 'nothing exciting so far'.

That is, if you don't consider half a heartattack after almost getting stackwiped exciting.

Units regenerate once and get consolidated.
Pretender Rebels move onto Marib, sieging it down for us.
Rassids are unable to recruit. Perfect.

Crimea thinks they're better off without Ottoman protection, Poland gets Lithuania in a PU.
We lower our maintenance again.
In case you missed it during our last run: Units reinforce attrition for free as long as your reinforce rate exceeds your attrition rate.

Careful reduction at first. Not sure if pretender rebels will jump us.
So far they've done nothing.

We're starting to get nervous. Something else should've happened long ago.

That's something. Not exactly what was desired, but not unexpected either.
Nations around us start picking their allies. Mikhlaf went with Mushasha.

Where's Mushasha again?

Uh... maybe they have the same school?
Could really use a school mapmode. They do have the same school and need to get military access through Haasa and Dawasir if they want to reach us.
Haasa rivaled them.
Okay, maybe Fars, Hormuz and Dawasir. Gonna check later.

Our siege continues one supply shortage at a time. Not like we're in a hurry.

Feeling a bit more confident and lower morale even further.

Still waiting. No, not for Godot.

Yeaaah! That's the guy we were waiting for.

With 0 units for several month they finally became an appealing target for their neighbours.
Aden attacks, we idle around. As soon as our siege is done Rassids will be tits up.

Not even worried about the duration. Our starting position is already so much better than what we had with Nagaur after the first war.
And it's only gonna get more fun from here on.

Fiddling our thumbs for a few weeks, pretender rebels move north, lock movement aaaand

We welcome our newest vassal as well as our newest enemy.
Rassids join our family, Aden will get overrun.

While they are fighting pretender rebels, our units park in Sahda, waiting for their fight to finish.

Feels good being defender in mountains.

That army tradition, that prestige, outrageous, truly truly truly outrageous.

Aden takes Starline enterprises back home for DUI. Or DOA.
Always confusing those. Made a few conversations go the wrong way back at our old job.
Eh, didn't want to be paramedic forever anyways.

Our ally goes in for Dulkadir. Together with AQ.
Interesting. Separate wars or promise of land?

Never checked. We were too busy talking about how unfortunate it is and Friedrich Nietzsche for some reason.
Unfortunate because it means they get access to Mamluks instantly and we won't be able to farm favors with Ottos against Dulkadir.

Aden's fort drops.

Calling in both our allies didn't lead to either of them getting attacked.

Should've thought of that earlier. After all, we did start our war with a defensive 1v1 against Aden.
Not much for potential enemies to calculate with.

That will change soon.
Who's next?

Umm, not you.
Definitely not you.

That's better.

Mushasha has 11.000 standing troops and potential for 14.000 total.
They also have no way of ever getting access to us.
At least we hope so.
Bordering nations get checked constantly.
If Mushasha ever shows up we're dead, until then it's easy pickings.

Victory and successive wipe.
Another day at the office.

FINALLY!

Next up: How that could possibly be good news and why we're going to break a longstanding habit.

 

[AVN]

Next up: How that could possibly be good news and why we're going to break a longstanding habit.

Quite a cliffhanger.

The only advantage I see with warring with Ethiopia at this stage is that they have some provinces which produce coffee.
But is that enough to justify warring with them now ?

 

[stnylan]

I wonder which habit you are going to break.

 

[Dominion]

I wonder which habit you are going to break.

Accepting a defensive Call to Arms

Quite a cliffhanger.

The only advantage I see with warring with Ethiopia at this stage is that they have some provinces which produce coffee.
But is that enough to justify warring with them now ?

Warring Ethiopia?

Good sir, tell us, war is worse than hell.
There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

We can not risk our citizen's lives like that

Thankfully, Ethiopia is landlocked. No boats in sight.
We move 4 transports over and accept our ally's call to arms.

Aren't we the best ally? We most certainly are.
And thus ends our contribution to the war against Ethiopia.
We sent boats, we're done.

Boats.

Heh, funny word... boats

Time to pat ourselves on the back and move on.

Adal rolls over and dies. Ethiopia waltzes through them with 33.000 units.
We constantly check to see if we have military access anywhere.
Don't wanna get surprised by Mushasha or Ethiopia.

After a successful siege we remember what we forgot.
They have a fleet. It's not weak. It hurts.

Light ships retreat, same for transports who weren't fully repaired to begin with.
The strait is open for Ethiopia, their siege sitting at 42%. If they get Adal's fort they can walk over.

16.000 units gather at our border.

Luckily Mikhlaf splits its navy.
Why, you ask? For the glory of Satan, of course!
No, seriously, no idea. AI nations love to split their ships.
Not even using the 'blockade' mission. That would mean all ships collapse onto seatiles where combat is taking place.

Nope. Just splitting them. Waiting to get killed.

With their navy being cut in three we wipe out one after the other, getting control over our strait once again

Our troops get bored after a while. Can't make peace with Mikhlaf since Mushasha refuses to peace out.
We'll have to sit on their provinces for 5 years to get 100 warscore.
Can't make peace with Ethiopia because they hurt. A lot.

Checking out what our vasssals have to offer we find a cb against Najran.

Ottos finish their war against Dulkadir who is now a vassal to them.
Good for us. Still no access to Mamluks.

WIPED!
They managed to flee at first. Got through two provinces before we caught them.
Makes it much more satisfying to wipe them instantaneously.

Their capital is lvl3... we consolidate and recruit. Not gonna wait for them to regenerate naturally.
Our manpower is 0, as usual.

Someone else seems to rise to the occasion.

Dawasir?
Now we don't have to attack into a royal marriage.
A path to northern provinces has opened

Najran becomes the newest member of our family, Dawasir turns into our lunch


Next up: Will there ever be peace on earth? And why did your narrator accept that call to arms?

 

[stnylan]

Well that's useful - a new avenue of expansion and all.

 

[AVN]

I guess you are waiting till someone bites.

Next up: Will there ever be peace on earth?

No. Unless you conquer the whole world, then there will be peace in the end.
But because a WC isn't your goal of this AAR there will be no ever lasting peace in this game.

And why did your narrator accept that call to arms?

Because he didn't want to lose prestige and dip rep. And don't tell me that wasn't a consideration.
But OK, the narrator could have had other genial reasons too to accept that CtA. I don't see them at the moment.

 

[Dominion]

We'll get to it soon enough

But first

A short chase, a fine wipe to come soon.

Quick look at our ranking. Not a great power yet, but we're getting there. 67 dev isn't too bad, even though it's mostly desert with low trade income.

Dawasirn desperately tried to recruit, we won't allow it.

Here comes the part where hilarity ensues

Are we friend, or are we foe?

By focring them to stay at war as long as possible we get rid of "length of war" and "military strength" modifier.
Adal can't run away forever.

In fact

They just ran into African natives. Unlike New world natives, these guys are fierce. 2.5 morale and 0.5 tactics. Adal barely manages to win, followed by getting wiped by Ethiopia.

Are we friend? Or are we foe?

Peacing out Dawasir ourselves. Full annexation. Next step is trying to find new targets.

Perfect provinces of interest. You will get exactly the kinda peacedeal you deserve, Ethiopia

In theory, they could've taken the same amount of land in a normal war as well. By joining we guaranteed that they'd get a full 100% deal since every war where a warleader is 100% occupied after 5 years leads to immediate 100% deals.

We fully annex Miklaf and

Goodbye, Adal.
2 provinces left.
We annull our alliance
Guess what, they're allied to only one person: Mahra.
Our genius plan isn't genius anymore, sadly. Dawasir already got fully annexed. Couldn't expect them to jump us.
But had bad come to worse, this would've been our ticket out.
2 province minor, no units left, a bridge into Ethiopia and full annexation of our other ally

We're not exactly a good friend in these games. No reason to ever accept a call to arms unless you plan on killing someone with it (or having him kill someone for you)

A short look at the map and our next target.

Beja? Only allied to Shammar.
Could also attack Shammar, who are only allied to Beja.

Both are Sunni. We've mostly eaten Shia land so far. Aggressive expansion is a non-factor.

Need to be aware of where we create it though.
Beja would be better. We plan on eating the rest of our Peninsula.

On the other hand, declaring on Shammar as our main goal.... hmmm, not sure.

Thing is, if Beja is warleader, we can vasssalize Shammar, use their claim on Anizah and start a chain reaction ending in the vassalization of AQ.
If Shammar is warleader, we can wait until Najd and Anizah jump them and get a defensive war.

Mostly we're a bit salty our genius plan wasn't as genius as we were hoping
Had a beautiful escape route through Mahra planned and suddenly Yemen's name is bigger than expected.

Shammar it is!
One last look at the map before we take another tea break. Looking good so far, but it can certainly look a lot better

Beja doesn't even have military access. We're having a field day here.


Next up: More war

 

[AVN]

This game needs a Insane level (VH+++++). A level in which the AI plays (or should we say cheats) just as genial (or better) as the narrator of this AAR

Anyway nice progress

 

[stnylan]

Lining up the dominoes.

 

[Tom D.]

This looks as interesting as your previous two AARs, I hope I'll be able to catch up on those and be able to follow this through. Good luck and subbed.

 

[Dominion]

Aww, don't make us blush

Especially now that we're at the point where things got progressively worse

We continue by completely ignoring our original idea of expanding into Horn of Africa.
Because talking is more important than following your own plan.

Rewatching the recording is almost funny. The following five minutes of gameplay are being spent talking about expansion into Horn of Africa.
It never happened

Okay, no problem, we have multiple plans lined up.

First Shammar gets caught.

and instantly wiped.
That was... not part of the plan.
A welcome surprise

We reduce war exhaustion to buy some time from rebels. An inquisitor arrives at court.
Gonna need that one later for a few things. For now he helps us converting.

Original plan is still to vassalize Shammar, declare on Anizah, set AQ as co-belligerent and get a vassal right next to Ottomans.

Aaaaaand that plan's dead.
Died in half a second.
They allied Mamluks.

Checking our current situation: Everything is dirt.
Our provinces: dirt
Expansion plans: dirt
Future allies: dirt

Desert, 3 development, absolutely nothing useful to gain.

Maybe it's not too late to turn around. Gonna finish Shammar and continue looking.

For now it's looking grim. Happens when you ignore your own plan in favor of something you didn't want to do.
It didn't pay off

Shammar is fully sieged down. Not that it helps much. Need to get Beja first.

Going to grab the consolation prize at least. Anizah has a claim on Shammar. They will declare and call in Najd.

Why haven't they declared yet?

Sitting around long enough for Beja to arrive near our borders. Quick stackwipe aaaaaand...

YES, they declared!

Together with... what is Haasa doing there?

Five seconds, please...

Anizah did not declare.
Giving Najd enough time to fabricate and declare.
While calling in Haasa and Anizah.
All of them together have 24.000 troops against our 12.000
Vassalizing Shammar would give us a defensive war and let us wipe out one of their stacks.

Can't vassalize them as long as Beja is in our war.
Can't snipe anyone, stability is still negative, rebels are going to become an issue soon and we have about 50% more enemies than expected.

Should've never allied Adal. Just sit around, wait for Ethiopia to attack, then jump them ourselves.
Maybe ally Ethiopia.

Considered restarting for a good 10 minutes. Yemen is deep in the hole right now.

Estates are unhappy. Vassals are unhappy. At least our soldiers haven't revolted yet.

Oh well, great things never came from comfort zones.

Vassalize Shammar, gain Beja as a temporary ally and call in Mahra.

Numbers are looking decent.

Focus is on Haasa.
Not even aiming for a successful siege. Kick them out and move on.
Please leave. Immediately.

Military strength kept them in for ages.
Thankfully they were busy sieging down Shammar's capital. With them leaving all progress is lost.

Najd is now fully occupied.
Time to wipe their units and move on.

"our" ally Beja gets sieged down and kicked out.

Ottos are busy with their war against Albania.
-2 from 26 battles? Austria distracting them nicely.
As long as they can't attack Mamluks, everything's fine.

Najd got wiped, rebels start popping.

Our ally runs into them, dies and turns around.

Even more rebels pop. Mahra runs into them, dies and turns around.

*sigh*

Full annexation of Anizah, a few ducats and a royal marriage with Ottomans. Now we're talking!

Adal loses a war. Thankfully one more province is left. Could still get a foothold on the Horn of Africa and eat Mahra.

We send Ottos an expensive gift to get them to flip to loyal.
They're above 150 opinion.
They don't flip loyal.
We flip a table.

That wasn't cheap. Not at all. We just wasted A TON of cash and our provinces are still dirt. Most of our income is conquest.
Can't conquest without money.

More loans, more debasing, more mercs, diplomatic reputation advisor and FINALLY the alliance with Ottomans.
We got our friend. Yemen is safe.

As safe as a dead nation can be.

2 looming disasters. 1 disloyal vassal.

520 ducats in debt. 13 corruption. Barely any income because our provinces are all horrible.

But at least we're allied to the Ottomans.

That's gotta count for something.

... right?

 

[stnylan]

Ahh, this is now seems suspiciously like the Nagaur run at certain stages.

 

[AVN]

But at least we're allied to the Ottomans.

But they can/will break the alliance if you keep underperforming, isn't it ?

OK, that comment wasn't nice, shouldn't have been made. Sorry, I apologize


Great story so far

 

[Dominion]

But they can/will break the alliance if you keep underperforming, isn't it ?

OK, that comment wasn't nice, shouldn't have been made. Sorry, I apologize


Great story so far

Hrhrhr, that's actually a valid concern

Not sure if it got changed, but normally they break an alliance as soon as they hit -50 reasons to enter one.

After deleating all mercs we're back to -20 from army strength, -10 from navy strength and +50 from 'friendly'

If Yemen loses 4 dip rep (annexation gives -3), if we ally one of their rivals, if they rival one of our allies, that stuff can kill the alliance.
Would cost another 500-700 ducats to get it back.

Not gonna enter any other alliance and hope Ottos don't ally our rivals or else Yemen is in an even deeper hole

Almost live, by the way. Still unsure whether to stream or not. Looking back it's getting worse with every session

 

[Tom D.]

Well as you said you got the Ottoman alliance that way, that counts for something. Hopefully you'll get them in a war and be able to declare bankruptcy, unless you think you can survive that debt spiral.

 

[Dominion]

Well as you said you got the Ottoman alliance that way, that counts for something. Hopefully you'll get them in a war and be able to declare bankruptcy, unless you think you can survive that debt spiral.

Don't bankruptcies instakill alliances or did they change that again?

Either way, we want to present a stable playstyle.
Well, more or less stable

As stable as possible on VH while still getting achievements.

As for stability, we clear nothern rebels and gift those provinces to Shammar. They're barely worth anything.

Mamluks have started integrating their vassals.
Once that's done they'll be able to grab new allies. Need to act fast.

Regularly check Crimea to make sure Ottos would follow a call to arms in case we get attacked.
Can't afford to lose the alliance and a war on top.
1 reason to protect Crimea. Our dip rep is better.
It's risky.

Ottos got their mission for Southern Greece.
They wouldn't attack Mamluks without us calling them in.
Too bad we only gain 1 favor every five years.
Mamluks are at war with QQ. Would be the perfect time to attack.

In case anybody saw our 'think tank' thread in general: This is what we were talking about.
Spent an hour staring at the screen here.

Ottos have 33k units and barely and manpower. Mamluks boast 53k,
QQ and its allies would bring 33.000 units themselves. That is unless they peace out and leave us+Ottomans stranded.

Unhappy estates aren't helpful. At least all our subjects are loyal.

Too bad they're all going bankrupt. None of them have recruited even a single unit so far.

Repaying a single loan. Drop of water on hot stone.
13 corruption left to pay off.
Should pay off corruption first. We talk ourselves into focusing on loans.

Would love to declare on Adal, but our royal marriage won't end.
Can't attack into a stabhit right now. We'd only get a single province in Horn of Africa, a few dirt provinces from Mahra... maybe a little trade income.
Could be worth it, but worth a stabhit? Our ruler refuses to die despite being a general since we started our run.
1/1/2.

This is probably the most unlucky thing of all. All mistakes aside, having a 1/1/2 ruler that won't go away is making everything a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

We give up. Mentally.
No other way but to declare.

Set AQ as co-belligerent and the party gets going.

We start by getting into a minor fight and fleeing through Haasa into Mushasha into QQ.
Not going to fight Mamluks heads on. No way, no chance, nu uh.
They attempt to chase, but we back at them, menacingly

Mamluks turn around and continue sieging down Shammar.

Unsieging a few of QQ's provinces for good measure. Keeps them in our war longer, maybe they'll even win a few battles.

Mamluks show up, we pack our things and run again.

Their numbers are scary. 30k in our provinces, but their leftovers are more than enough to wipe our whole army.

Ottos siege down AQ. Almost got the most important part of the war.
Our soldiers escape into Ottoman's provinces.
Not gonna get any warscore this time, not that we need it.

Ottos abandon their siege...
Come on, because it wasn't difficult enough already.

After a few moments of anger and panic they interrupt their movement, keeping their siege status alive.
We take a deep breath and

Realize we fucked up.
Not screwed up, not F-ed up, no, we fucked up.
Bigtime.

We never set AQ's capital as province of interest.
They'd be ready to get vassalized.
By whoever controls their capital.
Ottomans control their capital.
We can not vassalize AQ.

Sure, we didn't do anything this war.
Sure, we called in Ottos in hopes of betraying them and getting a free vassal out of it.
SURE it's our own fault, but still

Instead of getting a vassal roughly the size of our whole nation we get war reps... war reps and 8 ducats.

We want our candy

This is what happens when you talk and play.
Forget one minor detail and everything's going down the drain

"The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have." as they say.
We'd still prefer having the best of everything. Makes complaining about stuff a lot easier.

Numbers are barely equal.
War participation is atrocious.
No chance to get much out of this fight.

Corruption up to 15, cash situation doesn't look much better.
It's a mess.

For some reason we didn't fabricate on Mamluk's former vassals - of which Hejaz is already integrated - but their only province bordering us instead.

Suakin.

On the other side of the ocean.

Can't even peace out without fully occupying them.



Next up: Trying to pick up the pieces.