RYUKYU 1.9 three mountains one tag AAR no exploits

[misterbean]

I like that your empire is finally connected from Western Europe all the way to the Far East.

Especially considering where you come from.

 

[atwix]

wohoo new forum!!

Ok, now I gotta find out HOW to adapt my signature to update the links.

Guess I'll start writing a new chapter tomorrow.. I'm already at 1710 ingame and a lot has happened...

Also, is the link for the AAR forum broken for everyone? I had to "search" my own posts to find the new link to this.

Regarding linking my empire from europe to asia: I made a new Silk road after 1670, to a new capital, and got yet another new subject.

 

[Lord Finnish]

Great AAR, hope you will be successful.

May I ask what mods are you using for your map graphics?

 

[atwix]

Great AAR, hope you will be successful.

May I ask what mods are you using for your map graphics?

Could you please repeat what map mods you're using?

old link list hope links are still ok, will check tomorrow.


combination of tbarw extra: transparant political map and gfx overhaul - ironman 2.0
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=310638421&searchtext= and http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=334977901&searchtext=
i also use bigger production+ better ui interface: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=371789134&searchtext=
and bigger peace view: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=266947832&searchtext=
and better tooltip font: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169782855&searchtext=
and 50 loadingscreens: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=251964175&searchtext=
and hre retexture project: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=220203879&searchtext=
all are compatible with ironman.

 

[Lord Finnish]

Thanks

 

[Lutrinae]

I don't post a lot (or ever really), but this AAR is great enough to make me unlurk, keep it up!

Also, is the link for the AAR forum broken for everyone? I had to "search" my own posts to find the new link to this.

I couldn't get here from the EU4 subforums, but the AAR and Fanfiction subforum link to the EU4 AARs was working just fine.

Now back into hiding

 

[misterbean]

I can get there from my "Watched Threats", but the link in the subforum itself is indeed broken.

Edit: I'm sure these are just normal problems when starting something new like this. They'll sort it out soon enough.

 

[atwix]

seems they fixed the links in signatures, and the AAR forum link works again. Yay.

I'll post the new chapter within 6-8 hours.

Writing it can be tedious to start (I want to continue the game dammit!) but once I start it, reliving the campaign and reflecting on past decades can be useful for planning ahead aswell.

Here I go I guess. (Starts Word and Screenshot upload site)

 

[atwix]

Chapter 10: The corridor of Astrakhan



OOOOKAAY, if anyone needs proof that AI *does* do enforce peace, Here is it.

The situation: Thirteen colonies CN attacked French Canada CN. After a while, France enforced peace, England declined (WHY can a subject say NO to enforce peace? Shouldn’t I get the decision to decline or not? This must be oversight or bug ) and ENGLAND dragged me in a war versus France and half the HRE. Yes, half the HRE, as
France can call in all its allies since they are being “attacked” by me. Right

Got to love flaws in EU4 mechanics leading to world wars…. SIGH.



Poland annexed Lithuania. Border gore begone!



The result of that French enforce peace deal… Everyone and their mother is invading Austria
I didn’t have any 1k stacks near to start directing the PU armies either. Just… Great

You may notice Venice is in another war against me. That’s correct. I started a conquest war versus Venice, BEFORE France could call them in as ally in the other war. I can do better peace deals with Venice then. The goal was to occupy all the mediterrenean islands Venice has. Because Islands can’t be transferred to vassals unless you start a conquest war for them and THEN transfer them… I had claims on all those islands, and I figured a separate war would benefit me.



The AI seems to be smart enough to reinforce that fight. Spain to the rescue!



France still made a lot of casualties in that fight.. But our side won in the end



I decided to start a manoeuvre game. I stackwiped stuff here and there after baiting small stacks into attacking in mountains.



That strategy paid off…



Meanwhile, I still scoped constantly for other opportunities to strike. It seems everyone is invading Yue currently: I will aswell then! I declared on Yue.



After a while I decided to move the front more northwest towards France. Baguette must die!



I finished occupying Rhodes, Corfu and Crete, and I moved the mercs into the Venetian Sea, and invaded Venice itself. By now, all enemy fleets are sunk in both wars, so Venice can’t even attack me in their capital now since I block the land strait with cogs



After the last big battle, France routed to different provinces. I sent an army after all fleeing stacks. That’s one stack
wiped.



That’s two



France wasn’t pleased. They attacked again. Lets duke it out, France! I was on way to reinforce that battle with 100k men combined!



It turned into a battle of all-or-nothing; the AI sent every stack it had into that fight.
HOLD THE LINE!



I must admit, I had some good rolls there. Some folks might notice that Austria only has 2.0 army tactics versus France having 2.7. That’s correct. Austria is WAY behind in tech, due to all my feeding. The AI uses its military points for harsh treatment too often then.

This made me realise that I’m in fact a lot weaker in Europe then I thought. But lucky enough Spain, Sweden and Portugal have equal tech to France and they slaughter France here. If you carefully look at that battle window, you can see SPAIN (the yellow sqares) is actually doing most of the fighting. The white sqares are Austrian.

Important tip: The AI will always use the BEST army tactic troops in a fight, IF that fight involves more men then that can be placed on the battlefield. The fight here started as France versus weak tactic Austria army, and when Spain reinforced the fight with 70k men, they replaced almost the entire Austrian army on the battlefield. How that would be possible in real life I don’t know, but it DOES work this way (I think, comments on this appreciated!). The AI will assign the troops with best military tactics to fight the battle, and recalculates what troops will fight the actual battle each combat round.
This enables some smart tactics. Use weak army tactic subject stack (1k +that army attached with your best general) to bait superior armies to attack it in bad terrain with River crossing. Then reinforce the fight with all you got, and the best troops will relieve the weakened crap troops when they join the fight. Its how I usually deal with France. And as I demonstrated quite a few times now in last chapters: IT WORKS



During this fight, I scrambled leftover mercs that I landed in Venice to occupy all Bavaria provinces. Once the big fight finishes, Bavaria will rout only one province away, because all its home provinces are unsafe to retreat to. Explained that trick in previous chapters..

I won the big fight, and Bavaria got chased and stackwiped after. Bye Bavaria



I chased France with all I had. In the battle province, its as if Austria fights France. In the battle screen, it seems as if Portugal leads battle vs France with 2.5 army tactics vs france 2.7. If you look at the squares in the battlefield, its actually Spain that is fighting France, because Spain has equal army tactics compared to France.
Errrrrr, right. I explained why its this messy and confusing above.

I bet many folks never really watch the battle window, but it can be interesting….

 

[atwix]

YESSSSSS!! Take that baguette
*munch munch*



I occupied France with mercs, and turned attention to Venice and Tuscany. Venice capital is occupied. See that Tuscany stack? It was on way to reinforce the battle, and it didn’t STOP, cause it didn’t take the 91k reinforcements in next province Treviso into account, deciding whether or not to attack. Dumb AI



The result after a short while was a wiped Tuscan army



Meanwhile, a relative easy war against Yue concluded in more Lan Xang feeding…



An overview of the European battlefront.
I glanced at the peace deal screen with France, looking what peace deal would be best, involving the occupied claims I have in France.
I then cursed. Cursed hard Why? Cause I had forgotten entirely that this war versus France is flagged as RECONQUEST, not conquest or holy war. Hence, I needed diplomatic points to ask for provinces or anything else.. And my diplomatic power pool was depleted due to integration costs by the time I could ask for stuff in the peace deal. I should have removed the diplo rep advisor as advisor until this France war was won entirely….

ARGH Yes, even I can make costly mistakes

I couldn’t ask ANYTHING from France but war reparations, ducats, and I just humiliated them in the end.. A bit in rage. All this fighting and subject manpower loss for naught… I was angry at myself the entire day, because I could have white peaced France a LOT sooner. What a waste of time this was



I ended the war with Venice aswell, realising I could only take claims thanks to depleted diplo power pool. They did give me war reparations and all their money on top



I am integrating Crimea, Pegu and Lan Xang. I was at peace for once AND I had no rebels for once anywhere, so I took the chance to move my capital again… to Astrakhan.

Why ASTRAKHAN of all places you probably wonder

Because its almost bordering Asia, and being in the middle of Europe continent and Asian continent will reduce overall envoy travel time for late game claim making. Note that, in the end, a capital In east Black Sea likely would have been better. But I liked the sound of ASTRAKHAN as capital over Kuban, so to speak

And the Caspian sea allows for better fishing, under the nose of Timurids and Persia. Here fishie



*Blub*. “Kccchrrr BWEH!” The Timurids had the NERVE to fire a cannon at my fishing sloop!

Oh boy, that’s quite a sacrilege. You don't disturb a fishing emperor

Entire Ryukyu was in an uproar, and demanded swift retribution. To satisfy the hungry mob before my palace, I distributed all my fish and declared on everyone and their neighbours over the next 6 months..
Kazan joined the war on the side of the Timurids. Fine whatever, I got a hungry subject to feed…

Prepare to die Timmie! I’ll slap my last rotten fish in your face!!

On a more serious note: the other wars you see all are wars versus American tribes. I hardly had to do a thing to win them, as the colonial armies from subject CN did the fights and occupations. I won’t show the peace deals for all of them, but the bottomline is that a LOT of OPM tribes got fed to American colonial nations of my subjects.



*slaps Hussain II Janid in the face with a rotten fish*



*slaps Hussain II Janid in the face with a damaged rotten fish*

“I get the fishing rights in the Caspian sea, you say? Hmmmm nope, not good enough.”

So the war dragged on.



In other news: Wu full annexed Yue while they were weak. Wu can into Can-ton. Ha-ha. Oooh boy



In other news: Sibir defeated Oirat. Have you ever seen Sibir bordering the Himalayas? I didn’t, until now



Kazan accepted peace, and Crimea got fed. Crimea looks a lot better shaped now



This is the result of the wars In America: I’m feeding Thirteen colonies beyond belief. 4 more Tribes border them now. Well, 4 more that aren’t protectorates
The Portuguese CN are growing bigger and bigger aswell. Portugal is starting to colonize Louisiana aswell.



Persia full annexed the remainder of Georgia. I began to consider to force Persia into handing Caspian fishing rights over to Ryukyu. Now where is that rotten fish….

And whats up with all these stability events… I’m at +3, I should get NEGATIVE stability events Mr RNG, not positive ones



Pegu wanted to supply my army with (reasonably) fresh fish. But they couldn’t reach me

Since the army was hungry, I attacked Kashmir to allow the Pegu supply wagons to reach us… At least the fish stayed fresh, since Pegu wheeled them to us in the cold mountains during the winter



That’s a big part of the map that’s red. But most of it is low base tax crapland, unsuitable for decent fishing aswell.



In South America, Its mainly The Spanish CN that ged fed. I took one province for myself, to core it and to be able to claim stuff and/or holy war in the case the leftovers westernise and flip catholic.



I made peace with Timurids, and I bet you are thinking “WTF”



I made peace with Kashmir aswell, and this is the result.

The silk road is officially re-opened!

The idea was to link my capital to Pegu right from the start, and to make a corridor that is as SOUTH as possible. The idea now in the long run is to feed Crimea everything south of it in the follow up war, and to feed Russia everything north of it in the long run.

This new Silk road will connect my new capital Astrakhan, Crimea territory, Pegu territory and Lan Xang territory in the end.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 

[atwix]

Note that will write another chapter tomorrow, to catch up. Bit tired of writing for now.

 

[KingHeinz]

Was waiting for this all week
Awesome progress i would say. Your thing with the casus belli against france happened to all of us i guess.
Or made a peace deal and one second after sending noticed something.

Or for example a minor mistake i made yesterday and was mad the whole time.
I waited for tech reduction from innovative to get the next upgrade in diplo.
was a bit behind because of diplomatic idea.
At the time i got almost full mana poll i won the polish election and got the benefits.
I clicked the idea for cost reduction and thought i was 2 techs behind and rapidly clicked.
Only to notice after one millisecond i was now way ahead and wasted like 300 points or so...

Glad to hear the next one is coming tomorrow.

It was honestly the first thing i looked for when the new forum arrived (despite from the link not working at first)

PS: Thanks for your beautiful guide on PUs. Due to it i was able to get my first two PUs ever in 1000 hours+.
Other than France with england and aragon neaples as spain.
Didnt know it was that "easy"

 

[atwix]

Was waiting for this all week Glad to hear the next one is coming tomorrow.

It was honestly the first thing i looked for when the new forum arrived (despite from the link not working at first)

PS: Thanks for your beautiful guide on PUs. Due to it i was able to get my first two PUs ever in 1000 hours+.
Other than France with england and aragon neaples as spain.
Didnt know it was that "easy"

Thanks for your kind words.

 

[atwix]

Chapter 11: Conquering and integrating


This is the situation now in Asia. That hindu Orissa will need serious defragmentation



The corridor is colonized. I sold the southern colony to England, after selling them a port in Morocco territory. England needs to have coring range, or they won’t accept. If you want to do this aswell: you can also sell the entire corridor from mediterrenean to Africa to anyone who has coring range to the mediterrenean port. So any colonizer or any subject inside mediterrenean with a port will do.



A new day, a new war. Time to force my planned corridor through the Mamluks, to link the European land with North Africa… Kilwa and Yemen won’t matter in this war. Tunis and Mamluks are the targets. I wiped the Tunesian army in the first month of the war, and split the army there to occupy entire Tunesia before they realised whats happening.


Easy enough. This war is over before it started



I felt like snowballing on the 26th of march. I declared overseas expansion on the blobbed Sibir, Yes, Sibir was allied to Siak. And Siak dragged Bengal in. *shrug*




I reached the oh so important lvl 23 in military tech. As you can see, the corridor I made is full of rebels… I didn’t take into account that I can only core one province at a time there, moving east Oh well. Rest assured, the rebels weren’t a problem in the end.
I let the subject armies do their thing in Siberia. As you can see, the snowball is going strong. I started another round of declarations in America. This to avoid westernising tribes and/or tribes flipping to Christianity.


Castillian La Plata formed in South America. Good, that means I can feed that CN aswell



…which I did. The yellow blob is always hungry. The rebels got dispersed aswell, without me ever lifting a finger there.



Russia can handle occupying all the hordes. I gave the west European Pu subjects something to do aswell. I declared on Poland, and made Hansa co-beliggerent. This will be a war I’ll be directing myself, as its VERY likely I’ll get stomped here, after half the HRE joined in

As you can see I *did* get stomped. I was too eager, and I didn’t place 1k stacks near PU armies before declaring. The Ai formed doomstacks and won several battles, before I stepped in and took control of troop movements…



Tunis only has 5 high base tax port provinces left. I fed Portugal the best 3 of them.



This Poland war is really challenging. I quite enjoyed it. It required a lot of manoeuvring to split the AI doomstacks and to thin their troops…

Poland got the first big blow here. It was a battle of two Habsburgs. An austrian general named von habsburg on one side. And yes, that’s a Habsburg king I faced Poland took Habsburg ruler when they collapsed into a monarchy, since a Habsburg was the last elective monarchy king. You know whats funny? A jagiellon heir usually becomes heir then, with a weak claim. This means that whoever delivers last king to elective monarchy, has a chance at force PU Poland/commonwealth when they collapse into a monarchy. Smart PU players will prey on this chance, and try to deliver heir to an elective monarchy when they are in the timeframe to collapse to a monarchy..
If the commonwealth formed, kept its territory and survived into 17th century, they are a *very* powerful potential minor PU subject, due to their national traditions and idea groups. They become one of the best military powerhouses in the 17th century.



All the HRE states got occupied, not without a fight… Especially the Hansa was a pain in the butt

They look tiny, but fielded 50+k troops and a huge fleet. I defeated them by baiting them to attack an Austrian stack in forest territory with river crossing, and then chased them back to Lubeck after asking military access from Mecklenburg.
The screenshot shows a very bold move of cologne

The “nationalism” cb is seriously OP: Friesland got reduced to two provinces… I have never seen an archbishopric blob like this… Needless to say, the emperor wasn’t amused, and did unlawful territory on Cologne until everyone hated them and dropped alliance with them.



I shifted my attention to Poland. I slowly started to siege and occupy them. All their allies are defeated and occupied, so this war is won aswell..

It may look as this was easy, but it wasn’t This was the hardest war I fought for a while, comparable to the French wars. If only Austria had teched up military more

I have to expand opportunistically in Europe from now on, as this could have gone wrong easily. Poland and HRE decimated Austrian army in this war.. I was so occupied that I forgot to take a lot of screenshots



It may look funny, but a a few thousand of my troops and a 1k stack with big SWEDISH (!) army attached occupied a lot of Siak. Yes.. Sweden

They marched south after entire Sibir got occupied. I got call for peace for the Sibir war, so I settled for all the provinces Siak had on the Asian mainland, including Malacca.



I fed Austria more Hansa provinces. If you ever wondered why I gave Austria a province of Hansa ages ago: Here’s why. In the long run, I want control of the channel trade node, and assign a trader to feed the channel node from Lubeck. So I’ll feed Austria ENTIRE Hansa and Frankfurt in the long run. Those two nations are ducat magnets and they are the bank of the HRE. If you manage to occupy them, you can rob a couple thousand ducats easily. Know whats funny? If Hansa and Frankfurt get reduced to OPM, they hoard ducats. I once robbed Frankfurt, stealing 4k ducats. FOUR THOUSAND I intend to rob them both over the next decades, that’s why I want to reduce both of them to OPM.



Poland is being sieged completely. I made peace with Lorraine and Ansbach, asking all their gold. Ducats always come in handy. And as said above: OPM HRE nations always have a LOT of ducats. I couldn’t feed Lorraine and Ansbach to Austria, as the two Hansa provinces already meant huge overextension for Austria. I can ask for *one* province from Bavaria at best, to fill their belly.



Time to end the Sibir war. Russia was weak when I force Pu’d them. Russia is lucky nation. Yeah you are lucky, cause I will feed your belly! I fed them ENTIRE Sibir, reducing them to OPM. Overseas expansion cb is really powerful, and I think this proves it. Combine this CB with diplomatic idea group (-20% province cost) and administrative efficiency, and it becomes OP. Once I have that -20% cost for provinces and some efficiency, I’ll take on Orissa.
Anyways, I even had warscore left to feed Pegu a province of Bengal in the peace deal. Both Pegu and Russia got fed 9x% overextension in this Sibir war. *Burp*



I noticed Crimea got an absurd lot of rebels. Here is why.. Since I got that weak claim heir with good stats, it triggered a “tribal succession” crisis in Crimea. Errrrrrr, right I suppose I AM Khan of Crimea
And if you have weak claim heir as Horde, it triggers global +10 unrest in your horde nation. I don’t know if its WAD that it triggers when a horde is a subject… Feedback appreciated.



I’m trying to finish administrative idea group, to be able to activate the “vassal integration act” policy. Besides that: -%coring cost, less merc maintenance and a better merc pool will be good in the long run aswell, due to the manpower changes. I have been at 1k manpower since forever…



I had to wat a long while before Mamluks accepted a 100% warscore peace deal. Here you see the result of my plan that started decades ago, by giving Spain a province of the Ottomans near the Mamluks. Thanks to transfer occupation rule, I fed Spain the Mamluks, and I obtained my Red Sea port. The most Southern province of Mamluks I also took for myself. The idea in the long run is to expand my coring range to the Persian ports, and to Kilwa. I cored the province south of Gaza, and then I cored Suakin. I now have Holy war cb on Kaffa, Warsangali and Alodia. But they can wait. Most of their land is low base tax.

 

[atwix]

Finally, I made peace with Poland. I contemplated between feeding Crimea and Sweden as much low base tax provinces as possible, or to feed Sweden all the Baltic Sea ports. I chose the latter. I don’t like enemies with ports in Europe. You might have noticed by now that I like to feed European ports to subjects…

Why? Because I got dip tech 7, and because AI sucks at naval battles. I can’t make fleets. If I integrate these PU subjects with huge fleets, I will own a modern fleet with dip tech 7. And trust me, that is a very powerful tactic. To give you an idea: Spain and Portugal have a merchant fleet of several hundreds both. Not to mention the heavies. If I remove all European ports from enemies, then the subjects can focus on expanding their trade fleet. The idea in the long run is to integrate Spain after the 3 Asian vassals, and to use the merchant fleet for myself.
Okay, that was fun. I’m at peace again, god forbid Who shall I attack next…

I took my fishing sloop to Sea in Astrakhan, and pondered



Persia of course. I still need the fishing rights inside Caspian Sea, remember?

Persia was weakened because they helped Oman killing a load of rebels. Then Kaffa invaded Oman, and Persia helped fending them off.
Result? Oman won’t help Persia now, and Persia has no manpower and a relatively small standing army. Baluchistan and Galicia-Volhynia joined in. Be my guest.



Persia didn’t expect this one bit My troops did the sieging, and I led my subject armies south, killing anyone in their path.


Ryukyan subject train, coming through! Please keep a safe distance



The train passed the Persian capital, and strolled along the coast. Persia stared, like a cow that has never seen a train before

*SPLAT*



The entire Persian army got overrun. I set subject status to “aggressive” in subject window.

Important tip: if you have a lot of powerful subjects, you can use the subject window to control their behaviour. PU subjects are NOT listed in subject window, but they will ALSO take this set behaviour.
If you set subject status to aggressive, all PU subject armies will detach from the leading 1k stacks, split up, and siege all provinces with 5k stacks IF there isn’t an enemy army near. If set to aggressive, the Subject armies that DO have enemy armies near, will go into hunter-killer mode and wipe them. After that is done, the entire subject force will break into tiny siege stacks.

The idea here is to check then what provinces the AI is sieging, and if they siege a province you are ALREADY sieging, then move your 3k stack to an unoccupied province near the frontline. This screenshot demonstrates this tactic. In the end, my own troops moved to the Baluchistan border, occupied entire Persia, and the subject armies occupied Baluchistan.

War won. *Yawn* This is starting to become such a drag… The emperor is old and tired of war. All he wanted was to continue his fishing. He returned to Astrakhan, and sailed to his favourite fishing ground in the Caspian Sea.



And then… Tragedy

Remember the end scene of The godfather 2? The same happened here.

The emperor took the brother of his heir (the little boy he assigned as heir after a sinful evening with a beautiful maiden, remember) with him on the fishing trip. This brother saw his chance, and strangled the old emperor from the back, and dumped the corpse as food for his beloved fishing ground

A herald travelled to Persia, where his brother Shitatsu II was sieging the capital. Needless to say, he wept and became furious at the same time. But Shihatsu realised country comes before revenge. He took the throne while being abroad, and sent the Herald back home with orders to hang the pretender and to feed him to the fish in pieces. Only then His old father would find peace in death



I set subject status to supportive, and led the PU armies into the western Persian Provinces.
Shitatsu made peace with Persia, and Crimea got almost all the Georgian land and a corridor to the Persian Gulf. The PU armies and my army didn’t get black flagged, since Crimea owned the land now Ryukyu took one Persian low base tax province for itself. Why?

To do a dirty move



I made peace with Persia on the 30th. The 31st the peace deal came into effect. The day after on the 1st, I obtained holy war CB on Oman. I declared on the same day, BEFORE Persia could re-ally Oman. Oman now has -50 to create alliance again with Persia, and they couldn’t re-ally until the end of THIS war.

…. I know, dirty move. Oman is laughably weak after all its rebellions and the recent war with Kaffa.



I split my own army into siege stacks from start, as I expected the tiny Oman army was in the SE, in their capital. And it was. I occupied 2/3 of Oman before they knew what was going on

I engaged their main army.. with a 1k stack with a PU army attached. Same old.



Oman war was won, within 4 months



I made the yellow blob in South America bigger again. The sooner its over, the better.



Here I show the benefit of that “Spain into east Mediterrenean port” move I made long ago. Thanks to the transfer occupation mechanic, I was able to assign all Land to Spain, up to the SW land strait into Kaffa.



This led to this peace deal. Since Spain has coring range in the Red Sea thanks to the Mamluk provinces I fed them, I can do THIS. I fragment Spain again, they CAN core that inland province (as you can see), and took a province next to Mecca, and cored it. In the long run, this enables me to core Mecca aswell.
I spread Crimea even further south, and took a port province in Yemen, to be able to get coring range into Kilwa and Persia ports.
If I finish coring that, then I can core the Persian gulf province.



In other news: France is going on an Imperialism spree

They took the remainder of Friesland after bashing the HRE.



I attacked Wu, and their belly. Wu lost all its original territory in the northeast, and only has 2 provinces left in territory they took from others…

And now… Time for something exciting



I have been watching Japan for decades now. I made sure my diplomats kept relation boost over +90 permanently in case THIS happens. A new old Otomo king became ruler in Japan.. at age 65. HEIRLESS

I quickly made peace with the Indian tribe I was invading, to do an alliance with them. This made me go 2 above my diplo limit, but this a chance I can’t miss out on.
Japan accepted alliance, and they turned friendly status. This enabled me to do a royal marriage 122 positive to -119 range malus negative.

People couldn’t believe I Pu’d Japan as Foix in my last one tag. Here is how.

If the old Otomo king dies now, a von habsburg noble will become king in Japan, and I will start claim their throne the day after, break alliance, and do force PU war on them.



I contemplated for a while to focus on Asia, or to start delving into Africa. I chose Asia, and declared on Timurids again. I made all their allies co-beliggerent, and this the result. All the hordes joined in and Khiva and Afghanistan aswell.


And then this happened, as predicted. The old Otomo king didn’t last long, and died heirless. A Von Habsburg took their throne, and I claimed it immediately. OOOOOOK, how the heck will I invade Japan



I asked military access from Ainu. Landing troops from a cog fleet into ,a nation you have access, takes maybe a week. If you do naval invasion into an enemy nation, it takes more then a month. So Ainu access is a wise choice, to circumnavigate Japan fleet.

 

[atwix]

I declared force PU war on Japan, expecting the Japan fleet any day. My army marched into Ainu, and crossed the land strait into Japan mainland unhindered. Where the heck is the Japan fleet



I made more and more mercs around Greece, let them walk to Red sea province, and landed the mercs and the 12k leftover army that was in China territory all at once near the Capital of Otomo. The Japan fleet turned up from god knows where, but came too late. I really don’t know why they didn’t interfere sooner, or where they were coming from. I didn’t see their fleet in any port while ferrying, so a mothballed fleet wasn’t the cause. Oh well, it isn’t my problem. The entire Japan army attacked me, but I got 3.0 army tactics versus their 2.1. I won easily



One slight problem. Japan can rout over the land strait, but the Japan fleet prevents the armies I just landed to chase them. ARGH

I just took defensive position on their capital and placed baiting stacks near the land straits. IF Japan attacks those stacks, they will get -2 to dice rolls due to crossing the strait. I then reinforced the battle with the army inside Otomo, keeping an occupation force in Otomo. That situation dragged on for a LONG while, as I realised I needed MORE mercs to occupy the rest of Japan. Splitting the stack there was no option.

So I made MORE mercs and let them march to Red sea again. I sent cog fleet to pick them up.
Ever wondered why Red sea province is so important? Here’s why. You can ferry European made mercs into Asia without going around Africa.

See the event? Its another dynastic event, since I’m heirless. The longer a ruler stays heirless, the more monthly chance you get for a dynastic heir event. Most of these events can deliver weak claim heirs, but the RARE ones give strong claim heirs. The RAREST one of them all is Lux Stella, which gives you a choice between 3 heirs, usually all with VERY good stats. I think all three possible heirs are scripted to have at least ONE 6 in any stat. I took Alexander one, since he had best combined stats in administrative and diplo stat. And 6 in military will enable me to have permanent war taxes!

This event is very rare, I saw it happen only twice so far. But since I have NO royal marriages, I got very low heir spawn chance. And because you stay heirless, the chance for dynastic heir events increases. This event can give heirs that give the “divine ruler achievement very easily. The first time I had Lux Stella event as Burgundy, It gave me a 6 6 6 heir

….. Alexander Von Habsburg as heir for a Japanese culture kingdom

Sure why not

All the dynasty heir events have a nice little text. Look up the dynasty events here:

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Dynastic_events

Some of them have really funny text. Some are really usefull, like the “weeping song” event, that can reduce war exhaustion by two for a marginal ducat cost.

Carnal Sins

Could her lips be any redder? Doubtful. Hollow, in the back of your mind, echo the cautioning words of priests and preachers. Is this what the sermons spoke of? The Devil in a woman's body, and the temptations of the flesh? Strange. As devils go, this one looks a lot like an angel. Either way, you'll have to bring this up in your confession on Sunday.

I had this one happening for the current 6/5/5 emperor. Weak claim though.

A Silent Spring

She giggles. - 'Your majesty...', she says. You look at her. Her beauty is unmatched in your realm, and even in realms beyond yours. You say nothing. Spring is in the air, and as you lean in toward her, with the intoxicating scent of her perfume painfully present, a thought crosses your mind...

The intoxicating scent of her perfume huh. I wonder exactly *what* perfume your majesty is scenting here

Marriage Policies Pay Off

Sire! Sire!' the herald doesn't even attempt to hide his excitment. 'Great news!'. 'A son of our family is next in line to a foreign throne!'

Perhaps the most useful dynastic event. If you have 4+ RM, and any RM partner is heirless for a long time, then this event can install a 0year old heir in that RM partner that might spread your dynasty there in the end. If that heir becomes 15 out of a regency, he might be heirless, leading to force PU chance

Fear and Loathing in $PROVINCENAME$

Twilight is always the worst. The clouds racing circles across moonless skies, cruel stars suspended like grains of broken glass, and chandeliers throwing strange shadows across the Royal Chambers. Lately, a strange sense has come upon you that there is something wrong with the place. The geometry of it seems... unsound. Thinking back... it all started with the birth of $HEIR$.

When I had this event for the first time, I thought “WTF”. One option in this event is killing your own baby heir, and this leads to madness of your king, and the “discovery” event .

The Discovery

My $MONARCHTITLE$...' you sense instantly that there is something wrong. There is something in his voice, right below the surface. Hidden contempt, and fear. '...the new brick wall in the eastern cellar. It wasn't built for insulation, was it?' You remember it clearly now. How small the body felt. Carrying it down into the damp cellar, laying the bricks. It made you sick. Sick to the core. Killing your progeny wasn't the catharsis you had expected it to be. For an instant, the flashing glimpse of an insight blows across your mind...

It allows you to let your mad ruler commit suicide. That’s right, grim Whoever designed these dynastic events sure had a dramatic day.

Anyways, click the link and study the event conditions. Its all good to know, and important if you want to play the game of thrones to obtain minor PU subject greater powers.



As you can see, I bled the Japanese manpower by letting them attack crossing the land strait. But my troops there took casualties aswell. I really needed more men.



Here you can see why. Most of the army there is normal troops, and since I got no manpower, they don’t reinforce… But I occupied the Japanese capital! Let the ticking warscore begin



The subject armies occupied most of the Steppe territory without a sweat. I maybe had 4k troops there. I needed more time to force the steppe nomads to be absorbed into Russia.

But Khiva was easier. I reduced them to OPM, and Crimea got all their 1 base tax provinces.

They can core those, because I transferred occupation of all Timurid provinces between Khiva and Crimea to them.



The hordes became a part of Russia. I did this peace deal with the Timurids. A second corridor completed. Next war, Russia will get all the land North of the North corridor. Right.



During the Timurid war, and after everything was occupied, I declared on Oirat, to let all the PU armies move even more eastwards. They obeyed. Europe can into Oirat

Oirat got defeated easily, and I continued to snowball East, and attacked QING Qing was westernising, and I wanted to stop it. It dragged in Korea and Buryatia aswell.



Qing had a load of rebels, and their manpower got depleted thanks to it. Tough luck Qing, makes it easier for me

Guess what, Portugal ferried troops to… Korea, after I assigned them to siege… Japan

Stupid naval AI! I probably should have waited to attack Qing until Portugal landed troops in Japan. Oh well



I’ll demonstrate again how STUPID the naval AI is. Japan blocked the strait with its entire fleet, and didn’t prevent me from landing more troops. In theory, they could have left 10 galleys there and move the rest north. But they didn’t
21k Mercs landed on an occupied province, and crossed the strait into Japan mainland untouched.



I occupied my first mainland province. I was waiting for that. The QING fleet was interfering with my troop landings, and I couldn’t passs the strait anymore, as Qing was patrolling the Sea near it. So I directed my other cog fleet full of mercs to this province unhindered. The Japan fleet was sailing back and forth between the tile they were in and the tile northwest of it, unsure what to do I sailed to this tile when they were 2 tiles away.



I had almost 60k troops on Japan mainland now. Spread up and siege boys! And a stack of 35+k went in search of the main Japanese army.

Its now the QING fleet that blocks ther southern straits, and Japan sailed north. They switched sides again short after.



There they are! Lets get ‘m

 

[atwix]

After a few more months, Japan was utterly defeated



Qing aswell Take into account most of the QING land is low base tax crapland.



I ferried in some spare Japanese troops, and helped finishing off Korea. They were routed by Portugal in the north, and I awaited them in their capital.

look at the name of the general of Korea. For a second there I rubbed my eyes, after reading it as "I ching".
I defeated I ching? Luckily I didn't.

I Ching (Classic of Changes or Book of Changes), also known as the Yi Jing, Yijing, or I Ging, is one of the Five Classics, the fundamental books of Confucianism. It is over 3000 years old (the symbols used in divination are over 5000 years old), making it both one of the oldest surviving books in the world, and one of the oldest forms of divination. It is by far the most popular spiritual resource and oracle in Asia, and has a growing following in Europe and the Americas based on its uncanny ability to provide detailed insights to those who study it carefully.

I stackwiped Korea, and the entire Qing front is secured



Time for another then. Attacking Huron in North America dragged Norway in. The idea here is to full annex Norway, and to obtain their CN Vinland aswell. I invaded all their islands, and Iceland.



Japan gave in. VICTORY IS OURS

That’s right, Japan, in a personal union under….. Ryukyu. Pretty amusing, considering I started as OPM Okinawa island near them



I still was on the lurk for opportunistic chances across the map. Tuscany was being invaded by Venice, who had aid from France. I made some claims, and declared on them also. Because, why not

I declared conquest war on Tuscany for Pisa, and our new emperor and his family took a stroll there to watch some monument



Norway got invaded, and Kamchadals and Ainu aswell, because.. why not.

Meanwhile, I finished the administrative idea group. I can now enact the vassal integration act.



What does it do? Well, this

Enabling this policy lowers total integration cost of subjects immediately. Since the integration of Pegu, Lan Xang and Crimea are all past 75%, they all finished integrating the same day, because the policy made all integrations go 10x% of 100%.

I had to wait till those vassals completed core creation FIRST, because if NOT, Ryukyu would NOT get cores on those provinces. If you aren’t careful, you can overextend your nation past 100% easily this way



On april 1st, this was the first screenshot I made. And NO, it is NOT an april fool joke

Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 

[ThetrueColt]

I still can't really believe it, even though I've been following this from the start. It's just amazing, and WC looks quite possible now as well.

The new forum smilies are pretty interesting as well.

Great grand update atwix! Keep on rocking

 

[atwix]

I updated the chapter links in original post. The old links didn't work after the forum got updated.

So if there are any AAR writers reading this: check your table of content links in your AAR, as all the old links redirect readers to the first post, and not the specific posts.

 

[birincikalite]

Nice

Btw, each unit takes his own military tactics/morale etc. according to guys such as DDRJake . The screen is misleading, as is every tooltip in this game.
Also you said you put objectives for vassals to do naval invasions... Well, from my experience the AI will never care about objections far away, especially naval invasions. But they are quite good at naval invasions. So much that you can see a country like Norway bypass the British navy just to land 2 troops who gets stackwiped the next month... Anyway.
If you really think what u said is true, then my guess is that, since AI cares objections only if he is near, if the enemy goes to a country to do naval invasion and the ship passes by, he might just start caring and load troops to the province you've selected. Maybe.
I tried this kind of stuff with vassals in a AoW Prussia>Revoke Privilegia game and the AI didn't seem to care about naval stuff.