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Timmies can form Mughals by taking northern India and get muslim tech and despotic monarchy while at it.

Indeed, I knew that but I wasn't aware that even with Muslim tech and despotic monarchy, the Mughal would get stuck with crappy horde units until they reach -3 centralization and can modernize the military. In a game I posted here a few pages above, while I could form the Mughal empire pretty early (by 1430), I neglected to prioritize that slider move. I stopped around 1510 with a huge territory but still very poor armies.
 
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For a long time I was wondering which country would be best to play in SE Asia. They're all small and very poor, with the sleeping Ming giant at their doorstep. Finally I found out that Champa would be my choice.

Champa has quite a nice map color and an original flag, but that's not enough. They start with only two provinces and are the only Hindu country around, so their neigbors might not be very friendly with them. However, they have perfect starting slider positions for a quick modernization, plus a decent income (20 ducats a year is to be considered decent in that part of the world), and a good navy.

On day 1 I was attacked by the Khmer for no reason. An unwise move because they instantly lost 2 stability... and Ayutthaya had just accepted my alliance offer and joined in at my side. While the Khmer turned against their far more dangerous army, I took my 3k men for a walk through their unfortified provinces and sieged their capital. I annexed them a few months later... and ever since, all went well for the Cham !

CHA1527pol.jpg


Not a very large territory... but a unified peninsula is perfect to my taste. And it's a very well-developed, advanced and efficient state.

Geopolitics were the most interesting in that game. While I was converting all my provinces to Hindu, I assumed I had to prepare for a Ming invasion sooner or later. Finally we just became best friends. Taungu is just too poor to be annexed or even vassalized, so we just remained good neighbors. Nepal and Deva were released from Bihar, and Sunni Aceh from Brunei. Oh, and I also got a nice PU with Korea. The other green states are vassals.

CHA1527dip.jpg


CHA1527pol2.jpg
 
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About the Mughal empire... this time I formed it with Chagatai Khanate. Doesn't feel the same as with Timurids, actually, though Chagatai has much better starting sliders.

MUG1440pol.jpg


Some improvement, 20 years later. That involved paying tribute to the Timmies, I could'nt cope with them at the moment. Then I could grab some core provinces from other Hordes and weak neighbors, modernize the military and transfer my capital to Delhi. But there's still a lot to do...

MUG1461pol.jpg
 
I decided to try and make Maldive work:
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Managed to almost completely convert India to Sunni by the end of the game:
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This was HARD, though. I had to take Ceylon, then Deva Bengal and push east, slowly, into Pegu and Shan for a long time because Vijayanagar were too strong to the west. I got attacked a lot by Western powers, everyone I wanted to attack allied with Ming so I had to end up attacking Ming when I got strong enough, and I also made a few tactical errors that set me back. In the end I got attacked by Vijayanagar when I was already weak, was forced to release Deva Bengal, but 5 years later I launched a massive counter-attack where I took back Deva Bengal and smashed Vijayanagar - although they had a 4 to 1 numerical advantage I had westernized military so I did massive damage to their armies. After that it was quite straightforward taking India.

Financially, this is the hard way to do it. East Asia is very poor compared to India, yet I had to take it first, meaning I was struggling financially for most of the game. I went up to about 23 inflation at the peak. This is evidenced by the fact that at the end of the game, I still had 8 inflation, despite losing 0.32 inflation per year. Usually I manage to get down to 0 inflation way before the end of the game.

All in all it was one of my most rewarding - and infuriating - games of EU3. :)
 
I decided to try and make Maldive work:
All in all it was one of my most rewarding - and infuriating - games of EU3. :)

Congrats ! This is something I've been thinking about sometimes, but never had the patience to try. You've struggled a lot but ended up with a really nice country map, unlike most other countries that seem to have gone completely nuts in your game (what have you done, Burgundy ? and Wallachia ? and Zaporozhie ? and Brittany ? :confused:). Ming doesn't look in a very good shape either, but I guess you might be partially responsible for it ;).

Well I haven't played EU3 in 2 weeks... this makes me feel like starting over, oh no ! :D
 
In keeping with my far-East games lately I decided to play Sukhothai, an OPM that starts off in the middle of east Asia without even having a fort!

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We end up with an all-Buddhist, Thai far-East and Oceania!
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Here's the map:
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In keeping with my far-East games lately I decided to play Sukhothai, an OPM that starts off in the middle of east Asia without even having a fort!

Great, I've always felt pity towards that poor Sukhotai. They deserved to get their chance. Now at least there's a large quiet place on this chaotic world map, with a sweet color. So relaxing for our eyes :cool:.
 
Epirus:
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And we managed to get a pretty big win for Orthodox Christianity:
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World map:
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This one was HARD though, particularly the start. I had to roll the dice quite a few times to get Byzantium and Sicily to ally with me, and have Naples go to war with France rather than reconquest me. Then we managed to annex Navarre and Alexandria in some wars which increased our force limits and income to something bearable, and also allowed us to create much better Charge cavalry and Men At Arms troops. After that the Ottomans got dogpiled, allowing us to take a bunch of their territory, which got us to a point where we were basically stable as a nation and didn't get annexed by someone bigger. After that it was a long hard slog to taking land in Greece and expanding - Epirus also needs to Westernize as it has eastern tech. Burgundy got really big and got a reconquest CB on Navarre so we gave them that, and the Timurids expanded across north Africa so we gave away Alexandria to avoid that conflict. We managed to dismantle the HRE too. However it mandated a real focus on military strength. At the end we had 500,000 troops and the next nation down (Manchu I think) had less than 200,000. :)
 


I played a fairly unambitious game as Denmark, with the aim of invading and settling the British Isles. So long as you have enough troops on the island before declaring war, England isn't too tough while they're busy with Scotland + France + others.

I ended up vassalizing a rump England, feeding it provinces until it was a useful midsize puppet with a decent navy. I moved my capital to York, and set about settling the English provinces. From England (Renamed Daneland), I began colonizing islands in the Atlantic while consolidating my hold of the British Isles, mainly through vassalizing the Celtic-cultured countries, including Ireland and Brittany.

All the while, I maintained the Kalmar union and eventually (it took a couple hundred years) inherited first Sweden, then Norway. After forming Scandinavia, I granted independence to the old countries, choosing instead to forge a new Scandinavian nation in the conquered lands.



 
I want to keep control of the North Atlantic, and Norway faces the Atlantic. Plus, they got Orkney and Iceland. I'd rather not have a non-Scandinavian country grab those provinces and have an excuse to patrol their ships around me. Sweden faces the Baltic, and they're decently powerful. Even if Castille or someone takes a chunk out of them, I can just blockade the Danish straits and let rebels do their thing.
 
I was writing something, but unfortunately the game crashed and I did not even have it saved.

A Poland AAR


Year 1418
EU3_1.jpg



On October 14, King Wladyslaw II began to carry out projects for the reform of the army, which has about 14,000 soldiers. In this reform, the army would increase in number, to more than 25,000 soldiers, to protect the nation.

EU3_2.jpg

The entire human resource of the national reserve is placed in the active, with a new military system to bring more men to reserve the army.

The King through acts in parliament, expanded the domestic policies of expansionism, this created a popular dissatisfaction, because the people felt neglected, even so the king went forward with it.

EU3_3.jpg


That same month, three diplomats are sent to the courts of Brandenburg Bohemia and of Hungary, with the intention to create military alliances.

EU3_4.jpg


The Military Reformation comes at a delicate moment in the Mongol-Polish War of 1418, with clear military superiority, but that can go very wrong.

EU3_5.jpg


14,000 soldiers under command of Wladyslaw II are ordered to marches to the territory of Galicina to protect Poland itself. In the meantime, the diplomats return with two accepted alliances, Bohemia and Hungary, unfortunately Brandenburg did not accept, putting the rivalry between Poland and Teutonic Order with one foot behind for future wars. Another 13,000 soldiers are recruited throughout the kingdom, who soon go on to Galicina.


News about the allies:
On December 22, 9,000 Lithuanian soldiers conquer Dykra, after one in Kara Kerman.

Meanwhile, the king is taken to the Hungarian Crusade against the Turks, fortunately seem to be doing well, still not needing a Polish aid.

EU3_6.jpg


After months of organization, finally on January 24, 1419, soldiers arrive in Galicina, now they form 26,000 soldiers, who leave for enemy territory immediately. But Wladyslaw made a mistake, there was not enough supply, much less in the provinces he passed, where 3,000 soldiers died of hunger and disease halfway to Dykra, now he divides the army into two, the other would be in charge of Zawisza Czarny , in charge of the sieges, while Wladyslaw with the help of the Allies would be in charge of the battles, besides the fences.
On 22 March, Zawisza and his nearly 12,000 soldiers surround Salaciq in Crimes, and a few days later Wladyslaw surrounds the town of Cherson in Cherson.


EU3_7.jpg


News about allies:
Zaporozhia falls into the hands of the Lithuanians on 12 April.

While in the Hungarian Crusade several battles occur, in the first Battle of Badin, the Hungarians win, but in the second and third battle of Badin they are defeated, in addition to being defeated in the Battle of Ohrid, and in the second Battle of Nisava.

EU3_8.jpg


With almost 25,000 soldiers now surrounding Salaciq, the assault on the walls of 24 April is organized.

EU3_9.jpg



The assault lasts several days, until May 5, without any advance from the Polish side and its allies. The walls are assaulted again on June 18, but the Poles are repelled again.
On 1 August, King Wladyslaw was attacked by 15,000 Jabbar Berdi Borjigin troops at the Battle of Cherson, which lasted several days of skirmishes, but finally on 10 August, armies met decisively in the Battlefield, and forces poles are victorious, even losing almost twice as many troops.

EU3_10.jpg


After 270 days of siege, Cherson is finally conquered, after robberies that lasted 7 days, after the garrison suffered a lot of hunger and disease.

The great Battle of Zaporizhzhia Sich, after defeats in front of the enemy armies, the Lithuanians, under the command of Viktoras Svyriskis, find the army of 33 thousand soldiers in the province that takes the name of the Battle, a bloody battle begins, lasting weeks of confrontations, until that 14,000 Polish soldiers in command of Wladyslaw who were stationed in Cherson arrive to help the Lithuanians, then across the river, which cuts off the two provinces, adding up to 50,000 allied soldiers, again suffering more losses, but leaving victorious before Kazan and Jochi-yn Ulus.


Following the defeated ones to Donetsk, Wladyslaw thought to easily defeat the enemies, but he had the whole army annihilated, fleeing narrowly, suffering a shameful defeat before a war of this size.

EU3_11.jpg


And finally after 619 days, the whole Crimea goes before the allies, meanwhile Wladyslaw invests in 16 thousand soldiers in Galicina, a majority formed by mercenaries, to break the enemy encirclement in Cherson.

EU3_12.jpg


Finally on 12 July, as early as 1421, the two armies leave for Cherson, defeating the enemy in the Battle of Cherson (the third, I do not even remember). And completely annihilating the enemy in the third Battle of Donetsk.

EU3_13.jpg


Conquering Donetsk on 18 October.
(The interesting thing is that now the enemy has become the Mongol Empire, changing the color to blue)
 
Behold: mega-sexy-Utrecht!
Screen Shot 2018-07-07 at 7.55.17 PM.png

1399 start. Didn't do anything to the settings and I'm not quite sure what the defaults are. Played with my normal house rules (no declaring war without CB, no fabricating claims with spies, no breaking truces).

My goals for this game were initially just to conquer Gelre and then turtle until I got QftNW, then escape the watchful gaze of Burgundy by colonizing. I got some alliances and went to war. England, Brabant, and some other minors joined, but I believe their armies went to Münster province instead of to Utrecht or Gelre, so my 3000-strong army set in for a siege.

Then, out of nowhere, a Claims on our Rivals event pops up, giving me cores on Holland and Breda! Excitement! I quickly finish the siege on Gelre...but I can't annex them. They've taken Münster! Gah! I bite the bullet and vassalize them. I then get a truce with England, the war leader, but not before they annex Oldenburg and force-vassalize Münster (who they will later diplo-annex).

Time passes, and Holland is swallowed up by Burgundy. Welp, I think, there go my chances of getting my core on Holland. But then, Holland is reformed somehow, in the province of Zeeland. Not sure how, as I don't see any rebels... Then Holland province defects to Holland country! And they're only allied with Bremen and guaranteed by Switzerland, who is landlocked, and Brabant! Huzzah! I immediately build up my army and go to war.

I fully occupy Holland, vassalizing them and taking Holland province. I then decide to go for Brabant, and eventually defeat them and completely annex them. I soon get Unlawful Territory modifiers on Brabant province and Limburg. I then concede defeat or pay off the other participants in the war.

Later, I attempt to diplo-annex Gelre, fail, get exasperated, cancel their vassalization and our alliance, invade, and annex them. I then get a mission to incorporate Holland, which works on the second or third try, netting me the province of Zeeland and saving me from all that geographical confusion that popped up earlier.

My next mission is to vassalize Cologne. I declare war on them, and Aachen and Liège join on their side, along with a bunch of other minors. Those guys somehow managed to win a bunch of sieges in much less time (especially Cologne. Seriously, they must have very good siege engineers; in one of my first EU3 games, when I was a total noob instead of a partial noob, like I am now, Cologne swept through my lands while I was sieging someplace else), but I soon vassalize Cologne, along with Aachen and Liège.

Somewhere along the line, I build a CoT in Breda, but it soon stagnates and breaks down, partly due to another CoT popping up in Hamburg (which also later stagnated). I also pass the Statute in Restraint of Appeals and Dissolve the Monasteries. Protestant Reformation anyone?

More time passes, and I get another Claims on our Rivals event, which gives me a core on Antwerpen. I think I won't get this one anytime soon, but then I see a lot of Burgundian troops moving east through the Empire. I look and see they're at war with the Teutonic Order. I wait until their armies get out of sight, and then declare war, bringing in my ~15-regiment army (exclusively made out of Men at Arms with no cavalry) and my Vassal Passel (that's Cologne, Aachen and Liège).

That's where I've left off so far. As you can see in the above picture, I am sieging Antwerpen with my army, and Liège and Aachen are moving in to help. The Burgundian armies are east of here and out of sight. A small Burgundian force is sieging Aachen, but as you can also see, Ghent has already fallen...to a single Colognian regiment! Thanks, Vassal Passel!

Current map of the world, according to Utrecht:
Screen Shot 2018-07-07 at 7.55.52 PM.png

Note:
  • England and France (whose name isn't on the map anymore!) are back-and-forthing over Brittany and Aquitaine
  • Castille is going for Portugal instead of Aragon, and also snapped up a lot of North Africa
  • Morocco somehow got a lot of Mamluk territory
  • Syria is a thing
  • Venice is forging a new empire in the Balkans and Greece, has vassalized Morea-in-Achaea, and has had a couple of back-and-forth wars with Byzantium
  • Astrakhan got some land in Moldavia
  • Genoa and the Golden Horde are skirmishing over Crimea
  • Krakow is independent
  • MAZOVIA!!!
  • Novgorod and the Golden Horde both snaked (snook?) into Lithuania, taking its name off the map as well
  • is Georgia normally that big, or did it take some land from the Horde?
As you can see, I am only a little under 40 years into the game. So what do you think? Do you guys think I should turn this into an AAR, or just keep it here?
 
My inclination would be to see how it goes over the next hundred years. One more post here would be fine, any more than that and it probably deserves its own AAR (like that bloated Poland post above with a dozen pictures).

I keep thinking that I should post my "almost complete" HUN empire (up to 1820), which has the entire Balkan peninsula, former Polish and Lithuanian lands, the formerly Ottoman territories and around the Med through the Holy Land to Alexandria, Horde territory half-way to China, the entire island of England, scattered colonies in the Far East and Africa, and most of the North American continent and parts of South under its control...oh, and two provinces in Spain. Incredibly, MOST of that is culturally assimilated, as Horde territory has a bonus to assimilation and I've taken umpteen gazillion provinces of it, and meanwhile I've assimilated down through Byzantium and well into Asia Minor. HUN is also hereditary leader of the HRE (bribing Burgundy to become a member, then becoming Emperor a decade later), and has held them all as vassals for over a century, but annexing them en masse would change the name of the country to Holy Roman Empire, which wouldn't be a Hungarian conquest game anymore. Unfortunately, it took WAAAAAY to long to inherit England (after forcing them into a Personal Union by 1690), so they won't become cores until after the end of the game timeline, and putting down the constant revolts from all of their scattered provinces has been a nightmare.

Basically, it's not a WC, but about half-way there. It's been on the back burner for close to a year, where I occasionally load it up and play out another frustrating year of "whack-a-mole" with the insane rebel spawns....since I've got over 50 provinces of non-core territory in the New World and Orient, mostly inherited from England. My original goal was never to exceed 5 Infamy, but that slipped to almost 6 points on one occasion.
 
My inclination would be to see how it goes over the next hundred years. One more post here would be fine, any more than that and it probably deserves its own AAR (like that bloated Poland post above with a dozen pictures).

Cool, thanks for the advice! Nice to see people are still on this thread. I might turn this into some kind of AAR, if only so I can claim to be that guy who (hopefully) beat Burgundy as Utrecht. :cool:

I keep thinking that I should post my "almost complete" HUN empire...

That would be cool to see *hint hint* ;)
 
Update on that Utrecht game:
Screen Shot 2018-07-13 at 7.01.44 PM.png

I got my core on Antwerpen and forced Burgundy to renounce its claims on Gelre! And Utrecht's name is on the map now! HUZZAH!
The Vassal Passel (Cologne, Liège, and Aachen if you don't remember) are exceptionally good siege engineers, and Burgundian castles dropped like flies while the Burgundian armies were off smacking the Germans around.
I will start an AAR soon, and put the link up here when it's started.

EDIT: AAR is up! Please subscribe and comment to motivate me to produce more updates!
 
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The Horde!


I've wanted to do this for ages and I finally pulled it off (...sorta; I played this on Very Easy)

Some notes on the hordes:
- Navies! Hordes can't build them. This means I will not be able to reach any of the islands. Great Britain will be my end-game nemesis, provided they have the stones to colonize against my borders. I also can't reach Gotland, or Cyprus, or any of those other islands for the same reason. I CAN reach Sumatra across a straight, but their ships have blocked me there so far. And besides, I don't want to conquer sumatra because...

- Hordes at peace face consequences. There's an event that pops up accusing you of weakness and provokes pretender rebels. It will continue to fire unless you go to war, or raise war exhaustion which...

- You don't want to do! Hordes suck for war exhaustion (hence why I went for very easy and the better WE burn rate).
Btw, the rebel-hunting AI is stupid. If I let them at it, they will happily traipse 20k armies over the himalayas or through uncolonized african provinces with nary a thought to attrition. AND they will chase the nearest unattended rebels as measured by the number of provinces (LAND OR SEA) to them. A Moroccan army will chase a Portuguese rebel before a French army will... and march all the way around the Med to do so...
All this to say, you either need to micromanage your rebel hunting duties across the entire empire, or...

- Seige down provinces. Each fort that falls reduces your WE and raises legitimacy (if that were an issue). It's funny that after conquering everything in my path, the Timurids are now harder because I can't rely on a dozen constant seiges to keep my war exhaustion in check.

-Lastly, I'm torn about the future of the Tims... It's only ~1650 with lots of time on the clock. I could go Mughals (the easy way), and ruin my beautiful red colour. Or I could stay as I am and Reform the Government. That requires Gov tech 10 (ordinarily a Herculean effort for the hordes, but since the whole old world's economy is working for me, it's not a problem). Next issue is getting the right ruler, and then... I need to have westernized, at least one level. That is going to require some more slider changes (beyond the scary red lines that should not be crossed), and again a good ruler. And a neighbour with Muslim tech or better (i.e. NOT Pattani). Sibir owns a couple Russian provinces that I can force them to release when the time comes.

World map below: (Everyone likes red, apparently. It's Sokoto in Africa and Majapahit in Indonesia.)


Surviving nations:

EUROPE
Great Britain
Papal State (In Ireland)
Tyrone
Norway (in Iceland/Orkney)
Gotland
Portugal (Madeira + colonies)
Aragon (Baleares + Malta)
Parma (Sardinia)
Genoa (Corsica)
Venice (Crete)
Cyprus

ASIA
Yemen (Socotra)
Ceylon
Sibir
Japan + daimyos
Malaya/Pattani/Aceh (Sumatra)
Brunei/Majapahit/Makassar

NEW WORLD
Sokoto/Mali/Hausa
Huron
Inca
 
Those are some sexy Timurids! How did you manage to get that far without succumbing to Tribal Succession Crises?

An idea: Try conquering Sibir, Sumatra, and any other lands that you can reach, and then post the save file so that a player can either try to keep the Timegarids together or try escaping from their gaze as one of the small nations, colonize new lands, reclaim old ones...

Or you could just ignore my fantasies. :D
 
Those are some sexy Timurids! How did you manage to get that far without succumbing to Tribal Succession Crises?

An idea: Try conquering Sibir, Sumatra, and any other lands that you can reach, and then post the save file so that a player can either try to keep the Timegarids together or try escaping from their gaze as one of the small nations, colonize new lands, reclaim old ones...

Or you could just ignore my fantasies. :D

I suspect that AI would explode very fast with an empire like that.