Everything's better with coffee.
Out of options. Taking 30k out of the coalition. Remaining numbers look decent.
Zero troops in position, no forts, very open frontline.
Timmies have a few rebel issues, both vassals get sieged down immediately.
DoW overview is tricky. Our vassal's troops are far away and fairly useless.
Morale isn't great either. All our enemies have picked up defensive ideas.
Rebels from Edirne get transformed to religious rebels and immediately pop Cyprus which was sitting at 0.3 unrest.
Truce with Ajam is up. Couldn't fabricate in time. They will join as well.
Bad planning. Transoxiania couldn't join since they're at war with us and we could've vassalized Oman.
Our troops finally arrive with our vassal's still being far away.
Austria has to accept the peace of Westphalia, as expected.
Won't influence our run in any way, nice to see nonetheless. Has become somewhat of a unicorn these days.
Hormuz takes a detour to unsiege Fars' provinces. As long as they leave our provinces we're fine with it.
At least 2 mil techs ahead of every enemy, but morale is troubling.
Finances start to stabilize a bit and we go on the offensive.
AE is just a number
Fars gets peaced out for 3 provinces and our vassals finally come back.
You know how they say morale is king?
Mil tech advantage (Afghanistan is sitting at 10), flanking advantage, more cannons and yet we're having trouble to finish them off quickly.
Transoxia manages to reinforce and our troops are getting sent home packing.
Their casualties are higher, and we're gaining tons of manpower.
Manpower has become the only resource that isn't scarce. Keeps repleneshing even during wars.
We kick out Baluchistan, gaining 34 measly ducats. Our enemies numbers haven't decreased at all.
Here's where things start to get difficult to explain.
Ajam declares on Fars, which is allied to Hormuz, one of our enemies.
This is detrimental.
We have peaced out Fars, but can not peace out Hormuz. They only have one fort we can reach, their capital + lvl2 fort are worth more development than all their other provinces.
Oman joining Ajam's war (remember: They're allied) means they get to the fort faster than us, us having just recalled a stack from the frontline to get rid of Hormuz' troops.
Building ships is out of the question and wouldn't make sense either way. No reason to invest hundreds of ducats for a single war.
Never planned to actually take provinces from Hormuz and we don't plan to any time soon.
Long story short: We can't white peace Hormuz anymore, but they can run around being a pest.
Another thing that's rather new, at least for me: Transoxiania can sustain a disgusting number of forts.
2 directly bordering timmies, one is a bit north, 2 are behind the popup. There is no way to carpet siege and flip em off like you'd usually do with bigger nations in that region.
Making a run for their capital isn't possible either. Morale is king. An abusive, drunk king who hates our guts.
We manage to catch a stack in the deserts of Konjikala.
Good enough. Wipe some minor stacks, ignore the bigger ones.
We catch Hormuz as well, but they are very much unwilling to accept a white peace just for that.
30k troops are nowhere to be seen because they're busy whacking rebels in Crimea and Anatolia (Cyprus' rebels teleported to Edirne).
Some much needed warscore nonetheless. We're starting to think about alternatives. Already got 3 provinces and there's not much to gain here.
Original goal was to kick them out of the coalition.
Still, truce with Ottos is up in '74. Would be nice to have them trucelocked during that war.
Milan is asking for military access for no reason.
Still... no reason.
Need to ask Brabant later how they managed to get into a punitive war. They own a measly 8 provinces.
Oh yea, those provinces have dev, unlike ours.
Cute coalition. Would like to order the same.
And now for the big star, the main event, the unheard of, unbelievable
birth of Hisn Kayfa's navy!
One transport to unsiege Cyprus. One ship is called a navy, right?
Hormuz keeps getting caught. We placed a stack north, a stack south, walk 2 provinces away, they try to unsiege, we wipe them.
Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.
Yemen joins the coalition amongst several other nations.
But why?
Disgusting.
They're one reason away from not defending Livonian order. Problem is, they have +5 from dip rep.
We're overextended and are still suffering from annexed subjects. No way they'd defend us.
We increase trust and hope it'll suffice. Favors should come in just in time for our DoW against the Ottoman Empire.
Mil tech 13 gets unlocked, artillery starts to be useful in combat.
Not worth the price in combat, but we're sieging half the time anyways. 10% ratio has long been thrown out the window. We're closer to 25% now.
We debase.
No choice really. Main reason to debase instead of loaning is a negative balance delaying a gift by up to 2 months.
First you can't do it because your income is negative.
Next month you can't gift them because ..
Not a typo. The reason is ".".
They still haven't fixed that one and I'm not willing to risk another two months.
Five wipes, no army left, zero provinces unoccupied except their capital and fort, which is being sieged down by Oman and we still can't get a white peace.
Jesus Christ, what do we have vassals for?
Fun fact: Zero ships have been deleted or defeated so far.
None of our vassals had any in the past, none of them have any now.
They follow our example.
Quick overview.
Frontline is being moved forward to get Afghanistan down. We're not interested in this war anymore.
Vassal's fort are completely worthless. Their provinces get more traffic than pornhub on Valentine's day.
Our heir falls ill.
Wanted to kill him off anyways so we pray for his life.
To be taken by Beelzebub.
Successfully. The dark lord rewards us with an incorruptible 3/4/5.
We catch a few more stacks, kill more rebels and Timmies get an administrator who isn't an administrator.
The word is still in caps and far from correct. Not that it matters, just good to know that you always have to check.
Not worth the hassle.
An advisor for dip rep gets hired, hoping to get on Russia's good side and to continue integrating vassals.
Mazandaran will get integrated as well. They only have one remaining core on Transoxiania and Khorosan has a core on that province as well.
Difficult to convey how stressful this war has been.
Constantly checking a DoW on Livonian order to see Russia's reasons against joining, praying we don't get declared on until 1565 (annexed subjects runs out) and sending them cash every now and then.
Finances are stable again. Corruption can be rooted out and we look around for another ally.
Can't continue playing on the edge. Getting almost smashed isn't fun. Bahmanis or Mewar will become our best friend soon.
Time for a decade of peace. The Ottoman Empire needs to be put in place, vassals will get integrated.
An unsettling mix of fear and silence. Let's improve relations and hope for the best.