Tamerlane's Children: A Timurid AAR (Screenshot Heavy)

[Simac]

[anchor=introduction]Introduction[/anchor]

I've enjoyed reading AARs on this forum (as a filthy lurker) for a long time now, and they have really added to my enjoyment of the game(s) concerned. As a result, I've decided to put something back.

[Drum roll]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Tamerlane's Children
(A Timurid AAR)

This will be a picture-heavy AAR in the gameplay style. The usual disclaimers apply: I am no expert at this game; I make no claims as to the general usefulness of any strategies, tactics, or low-down dirty tricks used in this AAR; any historical information is probably from Wikipedia, and may be flawed or downright wrong, etc.

I've never written one of these before, so please be gentle with me! Tips and suggestions are welcome. I probably have a lot to learn from the knowledgeable folk on this forum.

I chose the Timurids because they provide one of the more eventful starts in 1399. In real life, Tīmūr bin Taraġay Barlas (better known as Tīmūr-e Lang, or Tamerlane in A-Level history terms) had conquered huge swathes of Central Asia. As our game begins, the Timurid empire is close to its historical zenith. After Tamerlane's death in 1405 it was all downhill for the Timurids. Let's see if we can change all that...

Version: Heir to the Throne, 4.1b.

Goal: Conquest. Tamerlane's children must finish what the great man started. My aim is to control all of Eurasia by the end of the game.

Difficulty: Normal difficulty, with all the default options but no "lucky" nations.

Advantages of the mighty Timurids:

• Quite a lot of land.
• Huge manpower.
• We start with a truly great leader, the aforementioned Timur.
• We have a very cool ladybird-style flag.
• India is ours for the taking!

Disadvantages of the mighty Timurids:

• We start at war. With everyone. We also have preexisting war exhaustion to deal with.
• Lots of our lovely land has problems with nationalism and/or a cultural incompatibility with our Uzbek charges.
• Tribal Despotism is a horrible government type.
• Our great leader normally dies within the first couple of years.
• In summary: Rebels. Lots of rebels.

Index
Part One: The End Of An Era
Part Two: Rebel Yell
Part Three: Turning East
Part Four: Agra Agro
Part Five: Empire
Part Six: Core Wars
Part Seven: Georgia On My Mind
Part Eight: Peccavi
Part Nine: The Arrival Of A Rival
Part Ten: The World In 1451
Part Eleven: Colonial Conquest
Part Twelve: Karmic Smackdown
Part Thirteen: Workshops 'R Us
Part Fourteen: The Conquest Of India (Pt. 1)
Part Fifteen: The Conquest Of India (Pt. 2)
Part Sixteen: It Takes Two To Tangua

 

[Beamed]

Screenshot heavy AAR?

Timurid Empire with no guarantees of your using exploits?

Rockin' flag?

Hell yes.

 

[S0ny B1ack]

Lets see how this turns out. Subscribed

 

[MizarNX]

I LOVE the Tims, so I'll be watch this one! Good luck, you'll need it! (Is it in HTTT or IN?)

 

[NEzuro]

Good luck! Finished a save as the timurids (later Mughal Empire) today and definitely one of the most entertaining saves I've ever played. Go for India in the start, the provinces there are worth a lot and the nations are behind you in tech and won't be able to make any greater resistance. I'll be following this

 

[unmerged(146885)]

Seems promising.

 

[Simac]

(Is it in HTTT or IN?)

Good point. I should have made that clear. HTTT, with the beta patch.

Thank you all for the encouragement!

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part1]Part One: The End Of An Era[/anchor]

Game start, and things don't look good. We're at war with almost all of our western neighbours, and have been since the 1380s. Most worrying of all, our war exhaustion is at 3.91.

Fortunately, we do have two decent generals, one of whom is our ruler Timur Timurid, a 7/7/8 colossus.

Here's the obligatory map. The Timurid empire is the big red blob in the middle. Ignoring Serbia, the nations we're at war with are marked with red asterisks.

The Timurid dilemma is this: We can win these wars, but we probably can't win them before Timur shuffles off this mortal coil. Given that we are a Tribal Despotism, this means a succession crisis. In the test game before writing this AAR I tried to win the initial wars, and managed to grab a lot of land. I then got torn apart by rebels and ended-up as a minor nation.

Discretion may be the better part of valour...

The problem is the Ottomans, who are having none of it.

Fortunately, they have to deal with our allies (who are busy invading Sivas and Angora) before they can even get to us. Result.

On the domestic front, we are preparing for the worst. As noted above, poor old Timur is going to die soon, and when he does we are in real trouble. To illustrate why, consider the following:

On the revolt risk front, war exhaustion is likely to go up (unless I am very careful with attrition and stop the Ottomans invading), and when Timur dies we get the following:

• We gain "tribal succession crisis": +10rr and a big stack 'o' rebels.
• We probably lose the "legitimacy" bonus: +3rr.
• We probably gain "incapable ruler" bonus: +3rr.

Unfortunately, there are some things that won't wait. So we "Establish Sheikh ul-Islam" for the stability cost reduction, and go one step centralised. How could that possibly go wrong?

Rats.

Then, on 23rd December 1399, the worst happens:

Double rats. Looks like our new ruler (Khalil Sultan Timurid, 4/5/6) is a moron. Still, we can hope that the people won't notice...

Oh. This might get interesting...

Next Time: Rebels and Turks, egad!

 

[unmerged(146885)]

Damn, Timur died too early.

 

[merrick]

Interesting Times(n): see Succession crisis, Timurid.

Well, it could have been worse - you could have annexed a bunch of provinces before Incapable Ruler dropped your BB limit by 20. BB wars on top of the succession crisis might have been terminally interesting.

 

[Simac]

Well, it could have been worse - you could have annexed a bunch of provinces before Incapable Ruler dropped your BB limit by 20. BB wars on top of the succession crisis might have been terminally interesting.

That's more or less what happened in my trial game. The BB limit dropped from around 46 to 20, due to: a) the incapable ruler and b) the fact that the new king wasn't a patch on old Timur.

2/3 of the country decided they'd be better off independent, and the Mamluks invaded. I didn't last long after that!

This time 'round I chickened-out of the initial wars. I can invade Georgia later (hopefully).

 

[sprites]

i think i was lucky in my timurids game as timur lasted until 1417

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part2]Part Two: Rebel Yell[/anchor]

As Spring turns into Summer in 1400, the Timurid nation is not looking healthy. In the North, we are still at war with the Ottomans, who have turned the tide against our plucky allies. Meanwhile, the country has a small rebel problem...

The extent of the problem becomes clear when looking at the revolt risk map:

That red colour you see is not the healthy Timurid red, which we hope to spread across Central Asia. Nope, that's a nasty rebel red.

The rebel issue is made worse by our lack of forts. When allied with the fact that the rebels seem to be faster than our armies (is this a tech thing?), this means that our generals are spending most of their time engaged in Benny Hill style chases around the interior.

Worse still, each province occupied has a chance of several "rebel bonuses". These will either ensure a healthy supply of future rebels ("10 years of nationalism"), or cut our tax incomes ("Tax rebels"), etc.

I really hate rebels.

Still, amidst all the death, destruction and chaos, our investment in stability (and some rubbish 2-star advisors) provides a glimmer of hope.

Then the Ottomans invade.

It's becoming a catchphrase, but...

RATS.

Fortunately, the delay our allies have bought us (at a high price to themselves) means that we have time to survive the succession crisis brought on by the death of Timur.

The relative lack of internal strife means that we can redeploy most of our armies to face the threat from the North. Despite the new manpower, the early months of the Ottoman invasion see our armies getting something of a pasting from the enemy and their irritating Serbian allies. What we need is a cunning plan...

What I come up with is a deep-lying defensive line (pictured above). Our three main armies retreat from the front line, and take up defensive positions in adjoining provinces with high support limits. The green lines represent mutual support and respect. Or something.

The advantages of this are twofold:

1. The Ottomans will have to walk their big hungry masses of men through hundreds of miles of poor support provinces. Attrition is a killer.
2. All three of our armies can support the others. The AI tends to build big concentrated forces and then attack in one place. We will simply wait for them to do so, and then send in the two unmolested armies to even the score.

Perhaps surprisingly (given my record with cunning plans), this works and works well. The main Ottoman army of about 20,000 men is utterly crushed after a bit of ping-pong, and we go on the attack.

The Ottomans reply with derisory peace offers. You can't blame them for trying, but I think not.

By September 1404, the tide has turned. The Ottomans are in open retreat, and (aside from some minor rebel issues) the Timurid nation is back in Timurid hands.

Huzzah!

Next Time: Why we didn't take any land from the Ottomans (and paid them off), strategy, and yet more blinking rebels.

 

[S0ny B1ack]

At least your survived the death of Timur and the initial wars.

 

[germanpeon]

Excellent! Now all you need are plenty of soldiers and some forts, and you're golden.

 

[MizarNX]

Good job so far! Hope the worst has passed!

 

[PrawnStar]

Subscribes - I've been thinking of doing a Timurid AAR (in IN3.2) but I'll read this instead

The TSC is fun times indeed, not sure I like that revolt risk mode. It's never going to be good is it.

 

[DredMorte]

Use fabricate claims on the indians ASAP. You need to form Mughal Empire ASAP.

 

[enkhuush]

You will need good luck. And I wish you good luck!

Go Timurid! No to Mughal Empire.

 

[sprites]

50 prestige for 25 ducats? wow