Re-Uniting Gondwanaland - with Elephants!

[merrick]

JDMS - Algiers and Tunisia can't get to me, and I don't really want revolt-happy muslim territories isolated in the middle of Castille. I just ignored them, and they got included in the final peace.

Storey - The writing on the wall may have to wait a while. Currently I don't have enough troops in South America to be sure of clearing the British out before they can reinforce, and my navy isn't modern enough to go head-to-head with 60 galleons. And while I'm pouring ~400d a year into colonies, I don't have the money to build up my forces. <Patience, sayeth the elephant.>

El Pip - As I understand it, after 1650 you can no longer DOW/annex pagans for 0BB. There are other changes as well, but from my point of view that's the important one, as there are still a dozen pagan provinces out there I'd rather not pay 20BB for.

GaiusC - Thanks for the information. The extra costs for DOWing heathens are a fairly minor consideration since they're small compared to the BB for taking provinces. But yes, I have no plans to go over the BB limit and get torn up by war exhaustion.

gabor - You mean, as in send colonist, send missionary, build ships, send colonist, squish revolt, build fort, send colonist, win pushover war, send colonist, build more ships.....?
That's the nature of EU endgames, I'm afraid. Even if I was able to win a mighty victory and drive GB and Castille from the soil of Gondwanaland, there'd still be another 50-100 years of sending colonists and beating up helpless Muslims.
But I've drifted into the strategy of getting the colonisation done before I unleash the pachyderms of war. While I'm supporting 18-20 colonies, I don't have too much spare for anything else, and all those low-rent provinces are dragging my research back.
The good news is that before the end of the century I should have run out of places to colonise. When my costs go down and my income comes up, I can build an army worthy of the Elephant and crush my enemies beneath my mighty ... err ... feet. I'll do my best to keep the journey interesting for the readAARs, I promise.

Enewald - Not very important for us Hindus. It'll upset Castille though - they're Papal Controller and keep calling Crusades agaisnt Tunisia.

aldriq - No, it's still on the "to-do" list. Sooner or later, I'll get round to sending an army to clear out the natives. (You'll note that the Castillian colony is no more and they don't have the colonial range to send another one.)

Sweboy - File D has been mistranslated, I'm afraid. There is no Yaroslavl province in the Far East (pity) - they took control of a Ming province during the war, but settled for forcing the release of two SE Asian nations. More File D material to come from China, though.

Basileus444 - Thanks. Unreclaimed Gondwanaland currently comprises British South America (plus about a dozen uncolonised provinces), Songhai, Mutapa, and the remnants of Mali, Swahili and Oyo in Sub-Saharan Africa (plus some uncolonised provinces), Castilian North Africa, Muslim North Africa (Algiers, Tunisia, Adal and especially Mameluks), more uncolonised provinces in Ethiopia, Arabia (Yemen, Oman, Adal, Iraq and more Mamelukes), Mameluke Syria, Mesopotamia, three provinces in Persia, Madurai (remember them?), the Hindu vassals, the Andamans and Diego Garcia, uncolonised Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea (which I haven't explored yet). So enough to be going on with.

 

[merrick]

The Long March through Africa

We need more transports. It's going to cost, because we're already over the naval support limit, but 15 transports split between two oceans just doesn't cut it in the modern age. I build 5 more, shuffle the modern ones to the Atlantic and the old cogs to the Indian ocean and now have fleets in both that can actually move decent-sized armies.

Speaking of armies <the elephant looks up> we need another war. Our exotically-named diplomat has died, but our reputation is still verging dangerously on “respectable”. Looking around, I note that our truce with Mali is almost up. Mali has been guaranteed by Adal, who are Land Tech 5 and have taken down Ethiopia and now bar our way to the remaining uncolonised provinces of the African interior. That's settled, then.

The first part of the war goes to plan – Mali's allies (Swahili, Algiers, Tunisia) all honour, I overrun Mali and annex it, overrun Swahili and annex it (gaining the gold/CoT in Kilwa), my elephants stamp Adal's armies into the Ethiopian dirt. <The elephant marches up and down waving a banner and trumpeting happily.> Then it all gets a bit tedious, since Adal's provinces are all fortified, and I haven't brought enough infantry to storm them quickly. Eventually, I make it to the Red Sea, and make peace for three provinces (Adal, drat them, has apparently not invented money).

The Horn of Africa after the war. That's Persia in Marjerteen, Yemen in Arabia with Adal on the Red Sea and Oman top right.​

While this was going on, Poland won its war with the HRE and took even more of Germany, Zapotec successfully revolted from France <the elephant rolls its eyes> Castille and Portugal fought against Algiers and Tunisia but settled for ducats (wimps) and Venice gave up Venizia (how is this possible?) to the Ottomans. Quite an eventful couple of years, if you're not an elephant.

For our part we took a border dispute with Songhai to get a core in Katsina and converted Oyo and Zamfara (our last pagan provinces – for the moment). Kondavidu assimilates to Avadhi, we colonise Wagadugi at about the sixth try to finally fill the last hole in West Africa and we finally get a slider-push and move to Free Subjects for the tech bonus. Our Sheriff dies and the best available replacement is a 2-star Alderman who revels in the name of Wynepuechiskia Meqachake. So fairly eventful, come to that, even if you are an elephant.

1640, and interest is provided by the old firm of Castille, Portugal and Poland, who have somehow managed to get into a war with Yemen. A parade of ships (including some genuine Polish fleets) around the coast of Africa ensues, but the war sputters out for a few ducats. Naval 23 is finally reached, and I build a dozen frigates. The Colonial Ventures event pops to inform us that a mere 174 ships cannot be considered an effective navy <the elephant has the reminder-stick ready, but the event engine is nowhere to be seen.> Wadjuk becomes a core and the colonists go forth to other parts of Australia.

Time to start cleaning up the pagans, before the cut-off hits at 1650 and they start costing us BB. I DOW Songhai, Mutapa bails on them, I take 600d and all their provinces but the capital.

Cleaning up the pagans in West Africa.​

France DOWs Venice, which is allied to GB. Venice folds fairly quickly, giving up Modena, but on past record the France-GB thing could run and run. Castille, I note, has built up their army to over 110,000 men (second only to France). They're also Land 27, so I remind the elephant not to let me take them lightly.

We get corruption, then an exceptional year a few months later. Exceptional corruption? Our monarch dies of confusion, to be replaced by the truly blessed Hirahe Sahi III (A/M/D 7/8/6). (Narsingh Rai II didn't do half badly - the record shows we gained 67 provinces in his 32 years of rule).

I forgot <ow!> to reduce army support after the Songhai “war”, so I take the chance to finish up Mutapa. The only have 125d, so they get annexed. So much for Mutapa.

Mutapa no more.​

And in case you thought China couldn't get any more messed up, Wu (who?) stages one of the biggest revolts in history, taking about 80% of Ming's remaining territory and leaving the former terror of Asia as a sorry scatter of disconnected provinces. <The elephant points and laughs.>

Ok (deep breath). The pale yellow is Wu. Ming (brown) is now in two pieces in South China plus Jiangsu (the capital) and a couple of provinces in the west. The red is Japan. The pale blue in South-Central China is Qin (the pale blue to the west is Tibet.) The yellow-brown on the coast is Mamelukes. The dark blue in Indochina is Brunei, and the pink to their west is Shan. The brown-yellow in the north-east is Manchu. The green is the Mongols, and you can just see a grey-brown Oirat Horde at the top right.

Putting on weight?​

 

[Enewald]

Time to attack some Chinese state?

 

[GaiusC]

Wait. The Mameluks conquered bits of China?
I suppose they were allied with Brunei at some point. But still, it's quite weird and funny.

Good work so far.
One of your biggest problem is obviously your unconnected holdings, causing a big loss in incomes and requiring more and more big ships to have full tariffs. But even if you wanted to, it'd take a long time to have land connections between Africa and India (though the planned conquest of Arabia will help a bit).

All in all, well done, and good luck for the next decades

 

[unmerged(90806)]

i wonder which continent / sub-continent / part of greater Gondwana will be first to become true-Gondwanaland, it seems India takes the lead as there is only one vassal left (ah, and Andamans). what will be next? South America: only those pesky Btrits to deal with, or Australia+New Zeeland: just a question of speedy colonisation, but as you say New Guinea hasn't been discovered yet
anyway, you got me right when i asked about 'monotonisation'(?) of the game that's why i hardly ever finish my games in 1820; MM does help here, i mean there's potentially interesting/dangerous internal politics/strife

 

[Qorten]

Hah, unless one of the Chinese successor states pushes out the Mameluks you'll have to conquer Laurasian land in order to conquer all of Gondwana.
Unless the Mameluks change their capital to the Chinese region of course.

 

[JDMS]

Well the elephant is definitely putting on weight. Time for a push into Persia?

 

[blsteen]

Hah the Ming! After the one game that I had where the Ming stretched to the Crimea and sprawled over almost all of Asia and proved to be a stubborn and determined foe, I always love to see them humbled. Africa seems to be getting cleaned up and with the blue and the red coats shooting at each other, opportunities may arise for the war elephant

 

[merrick]

Enewald - Not unless they somehow manage to interefere in Gondwanaland. Doesn't mean I can't point and laugh, though.

GaiusC - Mamelukes had provinces in China back in the 1590's (post #180). Yes, they were allied to a huge Brunei. No, I don't know how they did it, even so. Yes, wierd and funny about sums it up. (But be warned, it's not the wierdest thing Brunei gets involved in.)

Yes, the unconnected holdings is holding back my incomes, even more so because so many of those African provinces at 1-2 tax and unexciting trade goods. I suspect I'd actually increase income if I moved my capital to Timbuktu. But no-one ever claimed this AAR was logical.

gabor - India actually has three vassals left (Bengal, Assam, Manipur) plus Madurai, plus the Andamans. My best guess at the plate boundaries puts Nepal and Kashmir in Laurasia, though I'm willing to listen to second opinions.
Since I'm going for finishing colonisation first, bet on Australia.

In my experience, the majority of strategy games follow the same pattern in single-player - in the first phase you're the punching-bag of the game system and options are limited to survival; in the second you're strong enough to do interesting things but the AI is still a challenge, the third is just handle-grinding through the objectives with no real possibility of losing. Varying the difficulty tends to alter the relative lengths of Phases 1 and 3 without much affecting Phase 2.
EU3, for me, does a better job than most at extending Phase 2 at the expense of the other two, though I suspect that's a matter of skill as much as anything. In the hands of an expert, I suspect that half-a-dozen provinces means certain triumph. The reduced micromanagement makes Phase 3 less of a chore than something like Civilisation. But after you hit 50 provinces, the worst that can happen (unless you totally screw up) is having to give up some minor territory, or irrelevant money. And the micromanagement does add up.

Qorten - If I isolate the Mameluke capital (I don't think Cairo has a port), I should be able to exile the Mamelukes to China, which must be worth a few extra style points. Assuming they still have the Chinese provinces at that point, of course.

JDMS - Persia still has a few rightfully-Gondwanan provinces. But not right now...

blsteen - Ming in IN3.2 seems prone to massive disintegrations, don't know why. They often seem to conquer most of their neighbours north and south, then let them all revolt back. Having one the Chinese revolters pop up with more than 2-3 provinces is rarer - this is the biggest collapse I've seen.

Sub-Saharan Africa is indeed getting cleaned up. North of the Sahara, it's still full of Castillians and Mamelukes.

 

[merrick]

African Holiday

Two deeply mundane years to start with – build ships, send colonists, send missionaries, slowly research, slooowly burn BB. <The elephant announces that it feels “trapped” and is going on a “safari” to “find itself”. The narrator refrains from suggesting a very large mirror or possibly a seismograph.>

Austria is HRE. Poland lifts their embargo on us. France ends their time of religious turmoil but not their war with GB. Ottomans are the next to DOW Yemen – hold on, that one turns out interesting as they get military access from Mamelukes and wade into Arabia. They take a province from Iraq, two from Yemen but they can't get across the Red Sea to Adal.

Austria DOWs the Ottomans while they're stuck in Arabia. Castille DOWs Tunisia – and find themselves (with Poland) at war with the Mamelukes and Ottomans and Yemen – must have been some guarantees involved. I settle down to watch with interest. <A lion arrives from Deepest Africa with an order for popcorn.>

The Canaries have revolted to Portugal. Castille annexes Tunisia, takes half Algiers and then makes peace for a few ducats. Austria and Poland are overrunning the Balkans. Why, when I finally get a something better than a 2-star advisor, is he a <deleted> Recruitmaster?

Ouch. Austria takes five provinces from the Ottomans. But the Castille/Poland war with the Muslims splutters out in a string of white peaces.

Truce with Songhai runs out, so DOW Songhai, annex, DOW Oyo, annex and while I've got the army on full maintenance hire a Conquistador and ship him off to clear out the natives in Australia and New Zealand.

End of the pagans in West Africa.

Australia and New Zealand fully explored. Now it's just a matter of sending the colonists.​

By the time it's done, it's 1651 and a Boundary Dispute has given us a core on Mellila. I send the conquistador to clear out Madagascar. With BB heading for 0, I need a war. <A gazelle arrives from Africa with a poem on the virtues of calm and meditation.>

I have CBs on GB and Castille but I'm not in position for either and they both have bigger armies than me and higher Land tech. I'm also running out of money from running at full military maintenance for too long. And according to the Colonial Ventures event, even 200 ships don't make a proper navy.

Oops, it looks like Castille didn't make peace with the Ottomans when everyone else was peacing out a few years back. <A gorilla arrives from Africa to wield the reminder-stick by proxy.> The Ottos are forced to hand over Dalmatia and release the Knights (as a Muslim sultanate), Albania (also) and Athens (likewise). In the aftermath, the Byzantines take the chance to revolt. They come out as a Tribal Despotism but not as Muslim, surprisingly enough.

The Turk is losing its grip on the Balkans. They still have Venizia, though. In addition to the above-mentioned we also have Crete, Cyprus, Serbia and Bosina. Byzantium's capital, incidentally, is in Naxos.​

I wimp out and go after Adal again. After all, we need to take those provinces some time.

In fact, before the war even starts I get the “deficits” pop-up as my cash reserve dips into the double digits. War taxes solves the immediate problem. Adal's army is no competition, Yemen's fleet is very little competition, I come out with three provinces including the CoT in Awsa.

The Horn of Africa in 1653, after the second war with Adal. That's the Ottomans in Aden. Hedjaz is the green OPM on the Red Sea, Haasa the brown one on the northern Gulf.​

In the aftermath it's back to reconstruction. Lack of money is my big problem. Between 18 or so colonies, 5 or 6 missionaries and the fleet, I can't keep up with basic buildings, much less build up the army for another round with the big boys. Castille has 60,000 men lined up on the border in North Africa. I dribble out Workshops as the cash situation permits. I'm piling research into Production to try and raise my income.

Missionaries are going great guns. I've converted all the pagan provinces in West Africa and am working my way through former Mutapa.

Sweden and Portugal DOW GB and Poland. That's enough to help France win their war with GB (you'd forgotten it was going on, hadn't you?) France gains two provinces in North America and forces the release of Munster (the German one). <A hyaena arrives from Africa, and laughs.>

Austria clobbers the Turk again, taking most of the rest of the Balkans. Byzantium has annexed Athens. Lithuania and the Horde rip into what's left of the Russian states. The Byzantines may end up as the last Orthodox standing.

Not a good time to be Turkish. Byzantines are out of Tribal, but they now have more Muslim provinces than Orthodox. Wonder if they'll switch?​

I get distracted by a pirate which pops up off Tahiti, destroys two patrols I send to deal with him and ultimately accounts for no few that eight of my Barques before the Pacific Fleet takes him down. Not a good omen for a war with GB.

In case China couldn't get any crazier, Japan has managed to let their Chinese holdings revolt away to ... Qin.
The War of the Three Kingdoms will restart in 3 .. 2 .. 1

Elephant and friends​

 

[Storey]

Castille has 60,000 men lined up on the border in North Africa.

Any chance they will use them or it all for show?

China sure does look tempting.

I know you have enough on your plate without another adventure.

Joe

 

[lordkestrel]

East Asia is quite the mess. Castille is proving to be overly annoying, I was hoping they'd get in over their heads with GB. Austria is starting to look pretty scary, luckily they can't turn into the HRE in this game

Looks like it's back to the economy grind, need to get that thing in good shape before you can start pumping up troops to try and counter Castille in Africa. Grabbing the cot was a nice move, both from a ducats and a colonist perspective.

 

[JDMS]

<A hyaena arrives from Africa, and laughs.>

My favorite line. :rofl:
Anyway, are you actually going to be able to colonise the rest of Africa and Australia? Your economy seems to be going down the tank.
Also, those 60,000 Castillian soldiers seem threatening. Any chance they're going to attack you soon?

 

[Enewald]

No three kingdoms, only one Kingdom called Gondwana.

 

[aldriq]

The colonisation effort may be expensive but it's definitely worthwhile, it saves you lots of wars and time later on against the Europeans.

 

[El Pip]

I do like the idea of a Muslim Sultanate Knights. Just makes me smile.

More relevantly the safari of new animals with signs and messages is an excellent variation and one I hope continues.

 

[Basileus444]

So Ming has finally collapsed. For some reason they do that in most of my games.

It's nice to see Byzantines; they're my favorite country to play. In my current game as Russia, they revolted from the OE as a OPM sultanate, gradually grew to an 11 province Orthodox kingdom, and was then inherited by Scandanavia

 

[unmerged(90806)]

i wonder if you get any return on your colonies? or are they still a bottomless pit to throw money in?
i see that indeed Australia and Oceania will pbly first to be wholly Gondwanan.
and with a little help from his friends the elephant is bound to succeed

 

[merrick]

Storey - Castille has a CB on me, so I suspect they will use those troops if I look weak.
Since they are about 6 Land Tech levels ahead of me and I only have about 22,000 troops in North Africa, I am trying not to look weak.

lordkestrel - Castille is the big colonial power that has managed to stay out of wars with GB. (Though they've managed wars with a bunch of other people. They keep DOW-ing Algiers and not beineg able to finish them off.) Compared to Castille & GB, Austria is a very minor issue - they'd have to get all the way through the Ottomans to take territory in Gondwanaland.

And yes, current plan is to finish up the colonising and then build up the army.

JDMS - I have much the largest economy in the world - more than twice France's - but I'm also spending 35d a month supporting colonies (about as much as I spend on the army and navy combined). So I could boost my cash flow by slowing down the colonisation (i.e. not sending colonists as fast as I gain them), but I want to get it finished.

Enewald - Gondwana shall be one!

aldriq - Someone who agrees with my strategy! We must be right.

El Pip - Muslim Sultanate Knights are something of an occupational hazard in EUIII (there really ought to be an event that removes the Knight cores if Rhodes is converted to Muslim). This lot came out with two provinces (Rhodes and Janina), which is a bit more unusual.

Basileus444 - I don't know what makes Ming collapse, but they do seem good at it. Events making them DOW allies/fellow Confucians? Low land tech? High stability costs relative to income?

Byzantines in Naxos is a bit weird - Hellas would have made more sense. But yes, it's nice to see them. Oh and Orthodox Byzantium getting inherited by Scandinavia is seriously weird. Have a File D from me.

gabor - Well, all this colonising has given me a huge economy, it's just that the economy is currently paying for still more colonies. Once Operation Map Paint is complete, I will have still vaster wealth available for armies and then I will be invincible!!! <insert maniacal laughter here>

 

[merrick]

First up is some unfinished business. I've had a core on Madurai for ages (I think I got it during one of the big wars when I was too busy to think about it), but I've been avoiding the BB and stability hit for DOW-and-annex of a co-religionist. I probably should have been working on a diplo-annex, but by the time I thought of it, Madurai had got themselves into a Personal Union under Kashmir. <No, the elephant isn't back yet. Fortunately>

On the plus side, that lets me DOW Madurai, overrun both of them, annex Madurai and vassalise Kashmir for just 3 BB and one stability hit. And War Taxes pays the bills for a bit. <That may have been an approving noise out of Africa. Or it may have just been the monsoon.>

Gondwana will be one!​

Wu wants an alliance, but I don't much fancy being dragged into wars in China. And we've converted our last Christian province in South America. Next up are the Muslims in former Mali.

Things are afoot elsewhere. Austria and allies have got into a war with France and are being run over. Yemen has gone to war with Oman and Adal. There was a Persia/Horde war, apparently, but it ended in white peace before I knew it was on. <A vulture flies overhead trailing a banner “Be Alert. Gondwana Needs Lerts.”>

Now Southern and Western Africa are pretty much pacified, I start shuffling troops to the North-East and reinforcing my armies in India. I have unfinished business with Persia.

Australia and New Zealand are now fully colonised. It'll take time building them up into cities, but that's one part of Gondwanaland secured. <Message by swallow (African) inquiring about New Guinea. Reply that its existence remains unofficial.> Slider push time and I go Free Subjects again and it hits my stability.

One continent down, two and bits to go.​

The last of the former Mutapan provinces converts. Cajamarca assimilates. The Horde is tearing up the minors in Central Asia. The GB/Portugal war ends, with GB forcing Portugal to release Maya(!) Castille DOWs Brunei(!) which lands them in a war with the Mamelukes and Ottomans. Go to it, guys.

I bring the troops to readiness, hire a general (Shock 4) and wade into Persia. 15,000 men jump Persia's 12,000 in Majerteen, while 34,000 move on Persia itself. Despite Persia's 45,000 men, the war is virtually a walkover. My War Elephants stamp the Land Tech-18 Persian troops into the dust, and the Mansabdars don't do too badly either. When 9,000 of your troops can annihilate 9,000 of theirs for a few hundred losses, it's pretty much impossible to fail. <A band of baboons arrives from Africa to play an uptempo version of “We are the Champions". They stay around afterwards to cadge free drinks and steal bananas.>

I think I may have been overestimating the Persian Threat.​

In case I'm feeling too cocky, news comes from Africa that my army in Mali – all 10,000 men of it – has been wiped out by Sunni rebels. <Baboon tour abruptly cut short.>

Persia folds when they're down to their last 2,000 men. I get to keep Majerteen and Indus, Quetta and Kohistan, thus pushing my frontier to the boundary of the Indian Plate. This also completes my outstanding mission to conquer Quetta (even the elephant had forgotten about that one). <Loud voice from Africa: “NO!”> New mission is to turn the colony in Kamilaroi into a city, which will happen without further intervention.

We have what we want from Persia.
For interest's sake, the minors to the north are Khazak (green), Shaybanids (blue) and Chagatai (grey). The yellowish thing top right is Mameluke.​

A rush of assimilations in South America – Essequibo, Ceara and Arequipa. We hit Naval 24 and could build a shipyard, if we had the money. I also realise that during the last war I completely forgot the Andamans. <Message by warthog: Reminder-stick. Ow.>

Castille takes Alexandria from the Mamelukes, but are still fighting the Ottomans and Brunei. Rebels are starting to pop in North Africa, and there's no sign of Castillian troops. I start push armies towards the border, but before they get there Castille ends the war by forcing Brunei to cough up Aden and Malta, a file D moment if I ever saw one.

No, I don't know how the kookaburras got to Africa.​