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Re-Uniting Gondwanaland - with Elephants!

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Yo ho, yo ho, it's off to war we go...

As before, the war doesn't go quite to plan. <The elephant pulls out a sign saying “And What Else Is New?”> My allies (Rajputana, Vijayanagar, Bihar, Deccan) all join, Delhi, Gujarat and the Mamelukes come in on the other side. I kill Sind's army and siege their provinces. Mysore and Maharasthra have somehow got to Gujarat (must have ships), so I kill Gujarat's army as well and wish them luck. Delhi has one army invading Bihar and one invading Rajputana, completely ignoring the centre where Vijayanagar is busy overrunning the provinces I want to take myself. Sind builds troops in Kashmir and sends them down to harass my sieges. Mysore takes Gujarat and Maharasthra (of course) makes peace for a few ducats.

The siege in Kutch takes way too long. Eventually I wear it down, kill Sind's last army and make peace for Kutch. CoT to me and and insta-core thanks to the mission. Next mission is “protect our capital” - not a problem while Delhi is being overrun. I'm just thinking what I should ask for in the peace negotiations when Rajputana drops out with white peace.

This could be an opportunity rather than a crisis <The elephant looks nervous> – if Delhi digs their army out of Rajputana and shows some interest in recapturing those centre provinces. I concentrate on taking Gujarat's remaining province and annexing the place. (Another poor province, but it links up Kutch and Kathiawar>. Delhi sort of cooperates – chasing Vijayanagar's army all the way to Mandla and assaulting the fort while my army is busy killing off random rebels in Gujarat – but fails to take it and charge back north to defend Lucknow. Bihar drops out in return for Delhi renouncing one core <The elephant rolls its eyes>. The 3.2 AI is better than earlier versions at quitting when it's lost, but still often seems incapable of realising when it's winning. Delhi is being crucified by war exhaustion – 20%RR in the capital – and down to under 10,000 troops. If it wasn't I'd have taken peace ages ago.

The Mamelukes refuse white peace. Maharasthra somehow forces Sind to release Kashmir. Delhi kills off another Vijayanagari army in Lucknow and their last army then oscillates uselessly round Delhi while Vijayanagar & me are sieging everywhere else. My land research is declared useless, I am forced to buy off a Marathi uprising which threatened a 24-regiment revolt, but we hit Gov 5.

The Mamelukes have invaded and captured Madurai. I send my main army to kick them out while waiting to see if anything turns up in the north – and then Vijayanagar, holding 2/3 of Delhi, makes white peace, and in a warning to warmongers everywhere, I'm left to win the war over again by myself.

I raise more cavalry and rush my army north as Delhi heads straight for my capital. <The elephant cowers in the corner>. The Mamelukes land in Surat to complicate things. Then, as before, Delhi's army turns round and heads north again. <The elephant re-emerges and cheers>. I shadow it, killing off reinforcement regiments while dropping sieges into Agra, Malwa and Mandla. Arakan DOWs Bengal. Tibet optimistically DOWs Delhi. Delhi has assembled a 15,000 man army, but while the battle with my 8,000 cavalry is still going on the sieges in Malwa and Agra complete and Delhi makes peace for Malwa, Agra and 450 ducats.

We have successfully kept our capital safe. The new mission is “conquer Bangala”, which would get a lot easier if someone helpful (Arakan?) could take Bengal's second-last province off them.

I look up and see that Bihar is invading Delhi. Investigation proves that Delhi made the mistake of backing Bengal – when Bihar, Vijayanagar and Assam were backing Arakan.

Agra is Muslim. I send a missionary, send merchants to Kutch (if you're wondering why I haven't mentioned trading before, it's because I haven't been doing any. Before I reached the coast, merchants were 12 ducats a pop in Kutch and 24 in Bihar), raise some more troops, and sit down to watch the war.

It's not going well for the good guys. Deva Bengal revolts from Assam and they drop out taking Arakan with them. Tibet makes peace for ducats. Given the sky-high revolt risk, its amazing there aren't more rebels in Delhi.

A half-decent (2-star) Artist passes by, and I retire the Master of Mint. Delhi's ducats should keep me away from the minting machine for a few years yet. The Muslims of Agra convert in six months flat. Peace breaks out in the north soon after, and I decide to take a break.

Gondwana_1427.jpg

India in 1427. The royal blue in the top right is Deva Bengal - don't ask me why the developers decide to make half India some shade of blue. The red in the top left is Timurids - they've had a big Persia break away but are still large enough to be scary.

TN_drinking.GIF
 
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+-a third of India under your boot and we are only 28 years into the game. I call that good conquering!
 
merrick said:
It is a liberation - they're fellow Hindus oppressed by those heathen Muslims!
Click to expand...

You are right, for some reason I thought Kutch was part of Rajputana... Nice job with Delhi, hopefully next time you won't need to rely on allies.
 
Yoy21 - We are the giant elephant nation! The can be only one! <Elephant puts on a kilt and starts waving a sword around>

Qorten - Thank-you. The scary thing is how much BB it hasn't given me - with all the liberations and missions my reputation hasn't dipped below "respectable". I suspect HttT will see the end of this sort of thing.

Dariush - For the first, Persia isn't meant to revolt until after the Horde has self-destructed, so they shouldn't be co-existing in the same area. For the second, I can't work out whether the developers have theme colours for certain regions or whether they just don't care about clashes. For example, in the original release, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Brandenburg and (I think) Moldavia were all some shade of red.

aldriq - Kutch tends to end up as part of Rajputana, which is why I was keen to get it early. Fortunately Rajputana in this game showed very little ambition to take down the Muslim minors to the south (probably because they were allied to Delhi). As for the second, I've learned not to rely on allies. ;)

gabor - The elephant is in a hurry. I want to take QftNW as soon as I hit Trade 7 (so as to have some chance of getting to West Africa before the Latins nab it all), and I want to have India wrapped up before I start to expand overseas. Besides, sitting around only gives Delhi, Rajputana and Vijayanagar more time to blob, and no-one wants that.
 
If at first you succeed, repeat.

Thanks to the various missions, by early 1427 reputation is back to “honourable” <the elephant shakes its head> and war exhaustion is zero. Another war is called for, before Delhi gets to recover from the last one. I still have truces with Delhi and Sind (and the Mamelukes), but not with Bengal. And my current mission targets them, so Bengal it shall be.

I check my allies – Vijayanagar is still at war (and starting to have rebel problems), Rajputana and Deccan have no truce with Bengal, Bihar does – but at this point I think we can dispense with the services of Bihar. I raise some more infantry (I now have 16,000 men to Delhi's current 11,000) and with 31% tradition, decide its time to hire a general. Good decision. Arjuna Simha Daranjaya turns out not only to be Shock 3, but to have the siege skill as well.

Maintenance to full, troops into position, accept royal marriage offers from Kashmir and Deva Bengal, Bihar diplo-annexes Orissa. What?! I hadn't even noticed they'd vassalised them. <The elephant rolls its eyes>. I'd been hoping to vassalise Orissa myself, but at least this way I'll save some BB when I conquer them.

DOW Bengal. Bihar, despite being on 0% war capacity and WE 10, joins in anyway. Rajputana's in, Deccan's in, Vijayanagar's not in but they don't lose the alliance (they just stay in their own separate war with the same people). Send 2,000 men to Bengal while the rest face Delhi. Win the biggest battle I've yet seen in Agra with 11,000 men against 12,000. Bihar has found the troops to flood Delhi's border provinces. Rajputana is invading on the other flank. Vijayanagar, in a typical AI moment, makes white peace just as they've received massive assistance. <The elephant rolls its eyes again, more loudly.> And Deva Bengal launches an opportunistic DOW on Bengal. Here's hoping they take Pandua and leave me Bangala. <The elephant looks unconvinced.>

Kashmir is the next to DOW Delhi. Rajputana makes a quick peace, taking Panipat and forcing the release of Bundelkhand as a (Muslim) one-province minor in Mandla. Hey, wait a minute, Rajputs, I was sieging Mandla!

I take Delhi, which is unfortified (must have been an event). Some other western provinces are unfortified too, so I send a couple of regiments to mop up. Bihar, which is being torn up by rebels, makes white peace. I beat Delhi's army again.

I spot an unfamiliar flag in Ladakh – yes, on top of everything else, Delhi is somehow at war with Ming! But they've got the Timurids as allies in that one. The Punjab dissolves into mayhem, with me, Ming, Kashmir, the Timurids and the rebels chasing each other around poorly-defended provinces. I decide to drop out and go invade Sind.

Sind has sent a nuisance force to siege Surat. Rebels have crossed over the border from Orissa. I send my cavalry back to mop up and Delhi takes the chance to recover a bit and drive off my siege in Oudh. And Deva Bengal, drat the lot of them for idiot artificial monkeys, makes white peace with Bengal when Bengal has no army and their siege of Pandua is on 88%. <The elephant doesn't need to pull out a sign to communicate “I told you so”.>

Sind is being no end of annoying. They seem to be able to summon new regiments out of thin air, and before I squish them all, they have taken Surat and retaken Bakkar. And then, in a victorious battle in Malwa, the inevitable happens and our glorious leader of 30 years, Narsingh Rai, enters the next cycle of reincarnation. On the other hand, his replacement, the originally-titled Narsingh Rai I (you didn't expect the I, did you?) is pretty damn good (7-8-7).

I clean up at last and head the main army back north to deal with Delhi. Delhi has achieved the seemingly impossible – 20 War Exhaustion. Their army has no morale – I kick it around northern India while waiting for the sieges to finish up.

Pandua falls at last. I take it in the peace treaty – not because I want it but because someone has to take it if I'm ever to get Bangala. Getting access to it - to put down the inevitable revolts – means Military Access from Bihar, so no war there for a bit.

A revolt hits in the south and I make peace with Delhi for Oudh and Lucknow and the release of Nepal. The days of rich pickings from the Muslims are coming to a close – apart from Delhi itself (insanely rich at base tax 17), the rest of Delhi's provinces are all poor. Barring Delhi and Bihar (tax 9 and a CoT), the remaining rich provinces are all in the south. I plan to vassalise Nepal and have Gorka and Katmandu aid my tech development instead of hindering it.

Gondwana_1429.jpg

Northern India in 1429, after the war. Bundelkhand is yet another blue state, dead centre in the image. Pandua is the isolated grey-blue province to the east of Bengal, not to be confused with the light-blue province to the east of Deva Bengal, which is Vijayanagari.

Speaking of tech, we hit Land 4 while all that was going on. After checking the requirements for QftNW, I decide to concentrate on Trade until further notice. <The elephant gets out a counting board>. India is under control <the elephant looks up from the counting board and shakes its head> but if we're to get to the other three continents we need to start exploring soonest.

Rebellion in the south is followed by rebellion in the north, in which my general gets himself killed. His replacement (Daipat Simha Duranjaya) is a real chip off the old block – Shock 5 & Siege 1.

Revolts continue, the new Raja embarrasses the court enough to destabilise the whole country and I decide to take a break. It's 1431 and Gondwana dominates India.

TN_happy%20elephant.GIF
 
With Delhi reduced to an insignificant minor power I'd say it's time to mop up and clean your lands from foreign exclaves and unite your exclaves with the rest of Gondwana.
 
Qorten - Funny you should say that - there's a bit of enclave-removal to come in the next update.

Enewald - The strong also care about BB if it gets them into BB wars with Ming. ;)
More to the point, bad reputation scares off allies, and I still want Rajputana and Vijayanagar on my side until I finish with the Muslims. And cleaning up afterward will be easier if one will support me against the other, rather than everyone allying agaisnt me.

gabor - You may have to wait a bit for that - Trade 7 (& hence QftNW) is still a few decades away at full research speed. Indian research is slow. As far as India goes, my general plan is to take the rich provinces and vassalise what's left. Vassals can be annexed in the long term, but for the moment I don't want any more tax-1 provinces in Assam or the Punjab than absolutely necessary.
 
How art the mighty fallen...

Amazingly enough, I am not planning an immediate war. <The elephant dons a helmet and tries to take cover behind a rock>. I'm at truce with Sind and Delhi, and they no longer have much I want. Attacking Bundelkhand probably means war with Rajputana, and while I could win I don't yet want to dispense with that alliance. No the plan is for a peaceful few years researching and rebuilding the treasury until the truce with Bengal wears off and I can annex them.

Naturally, the game has other plans. Firstly the rebels, who show a downright sadistic tendency to spawn every time I reduce my army support, and then Vijayanagar, who decide their Arakan holdings are too small, and become the latest power to try and victimise Manipur. This triggers a cascade of guarantees and alliances that lands them (and hence us) in a war with Mysore, Assam, Ceylon – and Bihar.

It's really rather annoying. Vijayanagar is alliance leader, and for some reason Mysore is leader for the other side. I have no troops anywhere near Mysore. I flood armies into Bihar, hoping desperately that I can get somewhere before Vijayanagar makes peace for a few ducats or half of Mysore.

Bihar must have been really suffering – their forts go down in a matter of months. 8,000 Rajputs turn up to help storm Maithil. Orissa revolts away while Bihar is distracted and it's all over – or rather it would be all over if Mysore showed the slightest interest in making peace for Bihar's territory.

I curse. I get another revolt. The elephant cowers. My Commandant dies and all I can find to replace him is a 1-star Land Reformer. And then I look up and see that Delhi has finally collapsed, Punjab and Kohistan have broken free and the former terror of India is now a one-province minor.

Delhi_1434.jpg

Revenge of the Hindu underclass - all that pinkish red NW of Delhi (Punjab) was Delhi's until very recently.
Green to the north is Kashmir. Blue to the west is Kohistan​

Sadly, they're a one-province minor I have a truce with. I also have truces with Sind and Bengal. There's nothing I can do to pull them into war, unless I want to DOW Persia or the Khazaks. And I can't even DOW the Khazaks, because I don't know where they are. <The elephant is studying a Hindu text entitled “Unseen Forces”.>

Vijayanagar annexes Manipur. Bihar makes peace for ducats. We sight a meteor. I almost DOW Persia in a rage, but they're guaranteed by the Timurids, and that might be a little much. <The elephant runs around waving a banner “Calm down, dear, it's only an AI”.>

With nothing else to do, I take a slider push to Innovative (now -1). I don't like doing it, since it means no more missionaries, but Centralisation is too risky, Free Subjects is up against government-type limits (gotta get out of Despotic Monarchy) and we need the tech. The only thing I'm likely to be converting in the next few decades is Mandla, and I have 5 missionaries in store.

It costs another stability hit. Typical. We mess around killing rebels until Mysore makes peace for Bangalore. Very good war for Vijayanagar, no good at all for us.

We recover stability, kill some rebels, try and save money on unit support and get the rebels again. Kashmir DOWs Delhi. By the mercy of Vishnu they have no allies and can't get to Delhi. The little banner appears at last to tell us the truce is wearing off. Before it goes, Deva Bengal has DOWed Bengal. Fortunately their only ally is Maharasthra and with only 2,000 troops vs 2,000 they don't seem inclined to actually do anything. We DOW Bengal. Delhi and Sind duly honour and Delhi ceases to exist a couple of weeks later. Thank-you, Delhi. <The elephant makes suitable offerings to Shiva, Ganesha, and the God of Thunder & Rock & Roll.>

Delhi_Tourist_Board.jpg

Delhi as the estate agent described it.

The graphic for Delhi province shows a weapons manufactory. I'm getting all excited until I notice it also shows a shipyard and the wall they don't have. I suspect a bug.

Delhi_No_Tourist.jpg

Delhi as the new tenants found it.

Bengal's army left Bangala to invade Pandua. This allows Deva Bengal to grab the siege in Bengal. They duly storm it – with my troops – and annex the place. Right, Deva Bengal. I'll remember that.

Rajputana takes Bakkar from Sind and we make peace for a few ducats.

N_India_1435.jpg


TN_danc.GIF

The elephant in the ruins of Delhi​
 
Your arch enemy is gone so that's certainly good news. Bad news is that you're basically surrounded by same-religion states so it should be harder for your stability (and thus less money/time for research). From your writing I think you really want to do something bad to Deva Bengal now, which is, IMHO, the right way to go. Up to the Southeast and some budhist provinces! (oh, and don't forget the CoT in Bihar if you get the chance!)
 
Delhi has an excellent basetax. Which means lots of rebels! And no fort to stop them from instantly taking it and giving you 10 more years of nationalism!

Exciting, isn't it?
 
Kanil said:
Delhi has an excellent basetax. Which means lots of rebels! And no fort to stop them from instantly taking it and giving you 10 more years of nationalism!

Exciting, isn't it?
Click to expand...

Whoops, forgot about that! Better build a fort pronto, merrick! :D
 
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