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

[Simac]

[anchor=part11]Part Eleven: Colonial Conquest[/anchor]

Shortly before our new King turned the world red, we spotted the birth of a new minor on our Eastern border. It looks like Nepal has revolted away from Tibet and declared independence.

Small, no allies, Hindu, sound familiar? I’m sure we have a protocol for these situations…

Meanwhile, in August 1450 a new heir is born.

Hold on, a new heir? Alamgir I Timurid is still a teenager! He doesn’t mess about does he?

The Mamluks still have two cores of ours, and we want them back. Shifting attention to the Western front we see that they are in the midst of a rather nasty succession crisis. This is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for.

They bring Kazakh, Adal and the Jalayirids along for the ride, but their country is being torn apart by rebels, so they can’t do an awful lot about our red spotty armies.

In May 1452 they finally cave-in. 2 more cores down!

While waiting for the war exhaustion to dissipate, I get an interesting message:

What’s this? A colonial conquest casus belli (we have no colonies)? On Mutapa, which is mostly in terra incognita? Confused, I go in search of our colonial rivals, and find them hiding halfway down the Eastern coast of Africa. I click in on of their visible provinces, Zimbabwe… Hmmm, it’s a gold province. Nice.

Then I click in another. More gold. I maintain my composure.

Then I try the third…

GOLD!!!! Lovely, lovely GOLD!!!

[cue dancing around, rush building of ships, etc.]

The plan for this AAR was never to conquer chunks of Africa. Africa did not register in our long term plans. The trouble is that I just can’t resist stealing gold provinces from backward nations for very little infamy. Soooo…

By November 1453, we have ships off their coast with 16,000 men. War is declared and the invasion begun. The strange thing: Mutapa is like the Marie Celeste. They have no troops, they have no forts, we simply walk about claiming provinces.

It turns out that they also hold land further up the coast, but cut off from their homeland. That’s the place to store your 12,000 strong army, obviously!

Without forts, we only have to beat them once, and their troops march off into terra incognita, never to be seen again.

And what did we win?

Oh YEAH!

The only problem is that we now have overseas provinces, which means we need to build a navy and things. Also, all of these new provinces have a hefty tropical penalty because our capital is not tropical. Fortunately, we can fix that one.

This decision has been available for a while now, but I didn’t take it before because it didn’t feel “right” (role playing reasons I guess, sad but true). Now there’s a hefty financial incentive. Also, we gain +1 stability, +10 prestige, +2 base tax and +274 manpower in Delhi.

About this time we also get another slider move. Again, we go innovative. We’re now five slider moves from the first westernisation step. We get hit by the “We Appear Weak” event, but -5 prestige is no big deal.

Time passes while we build forts in our new African holdings. Missionaries are sent and ships built, all in the name of putting our new hoard to work.

In Spetember 1457, we hit production tech 6. One closer to 9 and our workshoppy goal.

While waiting it out, I amuse myself by sending spies to weaker or distracted neighbours. The “Fund Patriots” mission is sooooo overpowered in HTTT – you can grab big chunks of land with very little effort. It’s even better if the target has no forts. This spy abuse will probably figure in a big way later on. After the mission shown below, Mozambique embraced Timurid rule.

1463 rolls around, and we get a message telling us that Deccan has made peace with Khandesh. This is confusing, because I don’t remember seeing the notice about them declaring war. Let’s see what happened…

Ooops. Looks like Deccan has eaten Khandesh while our back was turned.

Strangely, I don’t actually mind too much. One of the most annoying things about the HTTT casus belli system (which I broadly like) is when you get a “Conquer XXX” mission. It gives you a conquest CB on the country involved, with 25% infamy, but only for the province named. If that province happens to be their capital (pretty common, since most countries are tiny) you are forced to either:

1. Accrue massive badboy in the first war before annexing them in the second, or…
2. Split them from their capital (if possible) and then fight them again to take it.

IMHO it would be better if these missions didn’t ever throw up a capital province as the target.

In this case, Deccan have saved us the hassle and expense of the first war. The time to act has come!

True to form, everyone gets involved: all their allies, all of our vassals, the Jalayirids with their now traditional warning. All good fun. Kazakh white peace out in record time, and we take Khandesh, leading to this:

We will be failing that one. The Jalayirids must die (but not yet)!

Straight afterwards we dispatch envoys to Deccan, who agree to release Travanacore if we’ll stop hitting them.

I was hoping for more. We’ll have to do something serious about Deccan soon.

More small wars follow, but nothing that threatens us too much. We annex the Oriat Horde (using a colonial conquest casus belli – weird, they are right next door), gaining two poor mountain provinces. We also swallow Nepal. Total infamy gain, 1.6.

More notably, we also get into a fight on the Eastern borders with Champa, who (with Tangua) broke Bengal. In the resulting peace we gain Bangala, which is strategically important.

The importance comes from the fact that Deccan is now contained. They have been abusing the “Holy War” casus belli almost as much as we have, but now they have run out of Hindu neighbours. In fact, all of their neighbours are either us or our vassals.

Let’s hope they get bored and attack.

Next Time: Karma catches up with the Mughal Empire, and a big war.

 

[unmerged(146885)]

Yes!
Red Mughals!

 

[Rabid]

I guess the plan is to beat Deccan up a bit so they'll explode into delicious hindu minors to eat for cheap

 

[PrawnStar]

Deccan looks like one big war from disintegration. Stabhitting, war exhaustion and spies after you sweep their armies off the field should do the trick.

Mutapa's irresistable, half the provinces are Gold and most of the rest Ivory.

(Hint to pagans - discover fish not gold )

 

[germanpeon]

So I take it that Delhi counts as tropical, and that moving your capital there eliminates the tropical penalty in it and other provinces. Is that correct?

Nice updates by the by! BB's going to be an ongoing issue.

 

[Simac]

I guess the plan is to beat Deccan up a bit so they'll explode into delicious hindu minors to eat for cheap

What he said!

So I take it that Delhi counts as tropical, and that moving your capital there eliminates the tropical penalty in it and other provinces. Is that correct?

Nice updates by the by! BB's going to be an ongoing issue.

Yeah, sorry if that was unclear. Delhi is a tropical province, so I lost the penalties when I switched. If I had realised that earlier I might have done it before...

On the BB front, I'm aiming to stay below 50% of whatever my limit is, leaving room to take advantage of any "grab all the land" opportunities. Due to having a pretty awesome ruler and being a despotic monarchy the limit is about 46 at the moment, so no immediate worries.

The high BB would hurt trade, but I'm nearly 100% mercantalist and only send merchants to my own COTs. As a result, that effect is minimised. Also, once I start westernising there will probably be several decades of (relative) peace in which to reduce it while recovering from the stability hits!

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part12]Part Twelve: Karmic Smackdown[/anchor]

May 1469, and we get another slider move. Once again, we go one step more innovative. We’re now four slider moves away from westernization.

This slider move also (finally) allows us to take the “Ibadat Khana” decision to counteract the +1 revolt risk resulting from our earlier religious meddling.

Soon afterwards we gain another level in production technology. We’re now level 8, one short of the level required for workshop spamming.

The following event is also quite handy:

That’s new a casus belli on the Golden Horde, Mamluks and Deccan.

A year later, it happens again. Is this a new event linked to warmongering, or am I just very lucky? No new nations on the list, but more cores means more provinces that we can take cheaply.

The rest of 1471 passes quite peacefully. The only event of note being the final downfall of Khandesh, who are annexed by Deccan late in the year. Serves them right, says I.

In the end, it is the Mamluks’ expansionism that break the peace. In August 1472 they finally cross the line between “glorious conquerors” and “dishonourable scum”…

This is too good an opportunity to miss. We’ve got to break the Mamluks at some point, and this casus belli certainly makes it easier and cheaper.

The armies are moved into position. Unfortunately, this is now a very slow process. Moving troops from one side of the Mughal Empire to the other now takes many months, and I’m constantly worrying that we might lose the casus belli while they trudge across the steppes. Fortunately, they make it.

As usual, the AI dogpiles me. Every one of the Mamluks allies jumps in, as do the Jalayirids. You’d have thought that they might have learned their lesson by now.

What happens next is not good.

Erm… Can I reload now?

Despite my cowardice, we decide to fight on. For the record, we are now at war with Yemen, Tripoli, Kazakh, Adal, Jalayirids, Golden Horde and the Mamluks. It total they have over twice as many troops as us, and over three times the manpower. To make things worse, half of our forces are at the wrong end of the country keeping an eye on Deccan.

This doesn’t look good, but as the old proverb says:

Q. How does one eat an elephant?
A. One bite at a time.

So, we stick to the plan…

Stage 1: Complete our mission r.e. the Jalayirids. I said previously that I expected to fail this (because I wanted to annex them), but we need them out of this war, and their one province is in an important strategic position.

We gain 4 infamy from the peace, but lose two for completing the mission. And get a rather pointless new assignment.

Stage 2: Distract the Mamluks. The Mamluks are our major target in this war. If we are going to fight half of the near east, then we’re damn well going to get some provinces in the peace. As a result, we want the Mamluks to be the last man standing when we’ve dealt with all of the others. That said, we don’t want them throwing their (quite large) armies at us right now. So we sow some discontent.

The target province is right at the other end of their empire, and has a pre-existing revolt risk of over 30%! The AI tends to target rebels in preference to hostile armies, so this should draw off some of their troops.

Then the bad things begin to happen. The Horde invades with rather a lot of men. One of those stacks is over 20,000 strong. The peace offer you can see in the bottom left is the Mamluks begging for a white peace. Some chance!

True to form, the smaller AI nations step in to take advantage of the situation. Ethiopia are in first, followed by others. In all the excitement I missed some screenshots here, so I’m not 100% sure who the others were. If you see random armies in Mamluk territory, that’s why!

Meanwhile, we are slowly losing ground to the grand old alliance of the east (henceforth to be known as GOAT-E)

On top of all this, bad events keep happening. This must be that Karma thing that the Hindus kept telling us about (between screams).

The war spreads to Africa, as Adal tries to invade our ivory/gold provinces. Fortunately, we left 16,000 men there, and Adal get the beating of a lifetime. Both they and Kazakh (who we defeated in the north) see sense and take a white peace.

This doesn’t seem to worry the Horde much, which brings me to the next stage of the plan…

Stage 3: RETREAAAAATTT! We don’t have the strength in the west to hold the Horde, so we’re going to revive a tactic that long term readers will find familiar – the deep-lying defensive line.

The idea (as before) is to select your defensive position such that your armies can support each other while denying the enemy the same. The red lines show the support. In another gamble, we also turn Alamgir I Timurid into a general. He had a military rating of 9, so he must be quite decent, right?

Decent isn’t the half of it! He’s a military genius! 6 shock! We might actually survive this…

The next day, my optimism is checked.

They were fighting Ming as well? Rats. That means that a large number of battle hardened veterans are probably marching towards our borders, fresh from beating up Ming-ese troops.

This means a change to the plan…

Stage 3 (v2): Get the Golden Horde out of this war. Having waiting until they were in range (read: in an adjacent province) we decide to attack. Timing is everything, so we wait until just after a failed fort storming and charge. With our new über general at the helm, and slightly superior numbers we win.

And they retreat into a province bordered by two of our (100% fresh) armies. Result!

It’s gamey, but one of the many reasons that I tend to fight defensively in EU3 is that you can “teleport” generals from place to place in your own territory. This means that if you have one superb general (for example ) you can simply use him in every battle, even hundreds of miles apart.

As a result, the retreating Horde troops are intercepted by fresh troops, led by exactly the same man who beat them in the previous battle. On top of all that, we now outnumber then 2-1. The result is carnage. Over 10,000 Horde troops just vanish.

Mopping up the rest of their invasion force is relatively easy, and it results in one of the more surprising peace offers I’ve ever had…

The Golden Horde still occupies about 15 of our provinces, and they are sending diplomats to us begging for a white peace! In normal circumstances I’d scent blood here and break them, but this has gone on long enough and the Mamluks are the target, not the Horde.

We’ll be back for round 2 later, I suspect.

All of a sudden, this doesn’t look so bad. In fact, I think we might be ok here!

In fact, the Mamluks have very little resistance left. A combination of rebel forces (some instigated by us) and our troops decimated their armies and laid siege to everything east of Cairo. This brings us to the final stage of the plan…

Stage 4: Break the Mamluks for good, and grab Jerusalem. To do this, we need to split one half of their empire from the other, so that rebels and minors can eat them while we point and laugh. We’re also aiming to avoid taking any of our new cores. We’ll leave those in place as justification for a new war later.

In August 1481, after taking Cairo and 60% of their territory we finally have enough war score to achieve our aim:

As the treaty is signed, both the Golden Horde and the Mamluks are beset by rebels and opportunist minors. Serves them right, says I.

Domestically, there’s not much room for celebration though. Our own revolt risk is looking nasty, and is only held in check by 3 5-star judges. In fact, some Deva Bengali nationalists even had the nerve to secede and form a new nation.

I’m really not in the mood to be subtle with them.

Once that truce is done, Bengal is due a kicking.

Next Time: Build, build, build, and our first war with a major power.

 

[Rabid]

Can't you annex countries in "wars of independence" outright or did that change in HttT?

 

[MizarNX]

Claim on our Rivals is one of the best events in the game.

You can find it in MoreRandomEvents.txt, id 728.

Apparently you "only" need a very good ruler and neighbour rivals.

Anyway, very good action so far! I truly love Tim's colour, glad it's back!

Keep up the good job!

 

[oddman]

High-quality work, Simac, and a very pleasing read. Keep it up.

 

[ZechsMerquise73]

Very intriguing AAR! How do you make your own country flag? That big, red, cyclops eye is very fitting. Nice work on the Mamelukes, haven't seen them spawned with rebels that bad before.

 

[Simac]

Can't you annex countries in "wars of independence" outright or did that change in HttT?

Hmmmm... That could have been a mistake on my part - I don't remember seeing the "Annex" button lit up, but it is very possible that it was. Rats.

I may reload the save and check (not that I can change it now). That's going to bug me!

Very intriguing AAR! How do you make your own country flag? That big, red, cyclops eye is very fitting. Nice work on the Mamelukes, haven't seen them spawned with rebels that bad before.

All the flags are stored in a subdirectory of the game dir (TGA files maybe - I can't remember exactly). I simply backed-up the one I was interested in (MUG.TGA??) and edited it using Paint.NET (free image editing program).

The important bit is to remember to delete the cache file in the same directory, or the new flag may not show up. Also, remember to back everything up first - otherwise mistakes may be fatal. I've learned that one the hard way while modding other games.

Full instructions used to be on the wiki - I'd do a link, but it's still dead AFAIK.

 

[Simac]

Can't you annex countries in "wars of independence" outright or did that change in HttT?

This was bugging me, so I reloaded the game and checked. It turns out that I wasn't using that CB, so no annexation for me.

On the other hand, nice to know that I hadn't messed it up!

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part13]Part Thirteen: Workshops 'R Us[/anchor]

Following all the fighting, a period of peace breaks out. War exhaustion from the Mamluk conquest was quit extensive, and a couple of years will need to be spent spent working it off.

Meanwhile, the Mamluks themselves are having some issues. Literally half of their remaining territory revolts and joins Haasa.

A lot of these provinces are now cores for four of five different countries. It looks like the fighting over this area will continue.

For our part, we ignore it all completely and start minting. The aim is to spam workshops over the entire empire within the next 5-10 years. For reference (compare later), here’s the ledger before we started this building program:

Gratifyingly, the Golden Horde are also having serious rebel issues. Serves them right for attacking us. Yes, that is a 30% revolt risk you can see there. Painful.

In December 1484 we get another slider move. Since everything is peaceful at the moment we go more centralised. Producing the usual “local pretender”, but nothing worse.

One year later, we reach government tech 6, and Deccan launches the most unsuccessful war ever (For reference, Deva Bengal is the dark blue OPM on the right):

Why unsuccessful? Well, three years on in February 1488 things look good for them…

But in August 1488 they take a white peace. WTF? These are our local rivals? How did they do so well with these sorts of idiots in charge?

In 1489, we get another opportunity to kill some heathens.

Morea have teamed up with Castile and Portugal, and taken provinces from our Muslim brothers. As a result they are now counted as one of our neighbours, and that glorious “Holy War” popup appears. Better yet, taking their Anatolian provinces will give us a border with Castile, useful when the time comes to westernise.

At about the same time, we also get a casus belli on Swahili.

Swahili have more gold, but unfortunately it’s in their capital, so we can’t easily take it. Still, the troops need to keep their hand in somehow.

In the end, we take Swahili as a vassal. That way we get a big chunk of their gold income without having gain any more infamy.

On the domestic front, the bad events just keep on coming.

32 regiments of rebels? Nah, we’ll take option B, thanks!

3 years late (in May 1492) we finally get around to attacking Morea. Unsurprisingly, both Castile and Portugal decide to join in. Fortunately, we're quite a long way away from both. Unfortunately, they are up around land tech. 11, where we are only at 6.

The early stages of the war go well. We defeat all of the Morean armies, and even push back a couple of Castilian stacks. By the end of 1492, almost the whole of Morea is under Mughal control.

Unimpressed, the Portuguese decide that they are having none of this, and open up a northern front with a sneak attack from Trezibon.

This forces us to split our forces, and more or less stalemates the conflict with the Iberian powers.

In October 1493, Karaman falls. We now hold all the Morea territory we intend to take.

The resulting peace is exactly what we wanted.

That just leaves us with Castile and Portugal to deal with. Unfortunately, neither will take a white peace, forcing us to make inroads into Castillian territory.

After a long struggle, Dulkadir (who were fighting Morea before we got involved) finally accept defeat, and are forced by Portugal to release Trezibond. This is irritating, because it frees about 8,000 Portuguese troops to harass our glorious armies. Trezibond’s first act on the international stage: they warn us not to engage in any wars. Cheeky scamps.

At this point, we have a warscore of 11% against Castile, and they still won’t accept a white peace. Once again we get lucky:

I believe we’ll sign that, thanks.

In other news, Oman has eaten Haasa:

And Deccan has some rebel issues (about time):

On the home front, we've now finished spamming workshops. The changes to our income are significant:

Our new research goal is to put everything into government technology. The aim: government tech. level 9 and another national idea.

Next Time: Deccan implodes, and the long awaited conquest of India.

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part14]Part Fourteen: The Conquest of India (Pt. 1)[/anchor]

Before this update starts in earnest, there’s a couple of things that I should have mentioned previously, but either they didn’t fit into the narrative, or I simply forgot.

The first is that we got the “Conquest of Jerusalem” modifiers from beating the Mamluks to a pulp.

The second is that Samara randomly seceded to us at some point in the 1480s. We did sponsor some rebels within Golden Horde territory, but that was several years earlier and we’ve seen nothing of them since then. Then one day we get a message saying “rebels are besieging Samara”. Where?

It turns out it’s here:

And produces gold!

Fast forwarding back to the present (sort of), and we find the Mughals at peace. This unnatural state is brought about by the need to reduce our infamy level a bit before the next round of fighting. Also, we have a bit of a rebel problem, what with all the Middle Eastern nationalists running around.

We reach government tech. 9 in 1498, and embrace the idea of military drill. Next time we go into battle our armies will be slightly less of an inchoate rabble.

Distracted by the rebels in our own lands, I’m not really paying attention when the following pops up:

Deva Bengal (who you may remember us beating on in past updates) had ceased to exist. We took two of their three provinces in a peace, and then Tangua did the rest. The trouble (from Tangua’s point of view) is that this left them with a disjoint province in the shape of Bangala. They asked for military access, and we told them “over our cold dead bodies”.

The result: rebels took the province (again), and Deva Bengal comes back into existence for the third time. They have more staying power than Lazarus those lads.

The other thing I notice (not much gets past me ) is that Deccan has a serious problem. They have been swamped by a raft of pretender rebels at the same time as various nationalists and some heretics for good measure.

Let’s see if we can help things along a bit…

If you look carefully at that shot, you’ll see that we have also declared (holy) war on Deva Bengal. This will be a surprise to nobody!

In July 1499, Orissa returns to the world stage. I think we need to start keeping score here! Rebels 2-0 Deccan.

Munch, munch, munch! FEED ME MORE HINDU MINORS!

The excitement of all this fighting is too much for our glorious ruler, who dies. Fortunately, his heir is pretty useful. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: Dawar Bakhsh I Timurid!

To celebrate his coronation, the spread of discoveries reveals the Far East in all its glory. Ming have hit hard times, but it looks like Wu are rocking along.

If you study the bottom left of that screenshot you’ll also notice that we’ve annexed Deva Bengal, and are busy laying siege to all of Orissa. We reduce them to a OPM in the peace that follows, and celebrate by funding more rebels in Deccan.

The other thing to note about that screenshot (because I missed the message) is that patriot rebels funded by us have overrun Gujarat. As some point during August the province passes into our control. One vassal eaten for zero infamy. Patriot rebels rule.

November 1500 arrives, and Maharasthra secedes. Rebels 3-0 Deccan. Two days later we declare war.

Next to escape is Gakwar, another Hindu minor. Just to keep the score going, that’s Rebels 4-0 Deccan. Deccan are staring relegation in the face. Once again, we declare war as soon as the casus belli appears. The difference this time is that we use the “reconquest” option. We can’t take their capital in the first war, but we can take Surat for zero infamy.

The next defection is even better. Malwa is taken by rebels and defects direct to us. Rebels 5-0 Deccan. Again, zero infamy and no war to fight.

Soon afterwards, we beat Maharasthra, and OPM them. Once more the celebration involves funding rebels in Deccan. The key to this whole strategy is to never let them recover.

Gakwar joins the endangered minor club soon after.

Next Time: To Be Continued...

 

[MizarNX]

Good job in India! Patriot rebels truly rock, personally I use them quite often. And if they manage to get you a eaten vassal at 0 infamy, 0 Decentralization and 0 Diplomats, well... why not to love them?

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part15]Part Fifteen: The Conquest of India (Pt. 2)[/anchor]

1504 dawns, and a salt crisis breaks out.

I’m not 100% sure what a salt crisis is, but it seems to worry people. Being British, when I hear "salt crisis" I instantly think of ungritted roads. Does anyone know what this event is really about? Is there historical precedent? Wikipedia gives me no answers.

Salt or no salt, the conquest of India must continue. Next on the annexation list: the newly hatched Mysore, born March 1504.

Died, September 1504. RIP. For the record, that’s Rebels 6-0 Deccan.

We wait a while for various truces to run out, we pass the time by funding yet more patriot rebels in Deccan. Now that the success change has reached 99% this is almost unfair. Almost…

Looks like Orissa’s sell-by date is almost up.

And they are putting on a two-for-one offer! It’s a shame that we can’t apply the same casus belli to both, since they are both filthy nations of heathens.

Maharasthra get away with renouncing a few cores. Orissa get to become part of the big Mughal family.

While all that was going on, two events of note occur. No. 1: We get a huge bunch of cores on the African coast.

No. 2: Portugal declare war on Shawnee. Looks like they have (finally) made it to America.

In October 1506, we get another cryptic message from the gaming gods: a casus belli on… Madurai?

It turns out that we’ve acquired a border, because Malabar has defected to us. Rebels 7-0 Deccan. I just wish I could find the setting to make the game pause when provinces defect.

This time, however, we refrain from instantly declaring war. We can’t get to all of their provinces without using our (woefully underfunded) navy. They can wait.

Speaking of which, the truce with Gakwar runs out on the 4th July 1508. We declare war on the 5th. They have one province, 1,000 men and no allies. No odds are offered by the 16th century bookmakers.

We have just invaded, when Mysore comes back from the dead. This is like trying to kill Jason in Friday 13th. Rebels 8-0 Deccan.

Still, if at first you don’t succeed, fund some patriots in Tiruchchirapalli (which I’m not typing again, it’ll be called T-place from now on)...

And then try…

Try again!

The observant amongst you might have noticed that the T-place revolted to us halfway through the war with Mysore. Rebels 9-0 Deccan. Officially a thrashing.

This has the side-effect of killing Deccan once and for all. As a result our mission, improve relations (yeah right!), is failed. And we get an even more pointless one.

So we build 200 ships, at a cost of thousands, for prestige? Nah.

That’s more like it!

All of the other nations on the Indian mainland are now one province minors, each cut-off from the other by land we control. Mopping up is easy – we just wait for the truces to expire and pick them-off one by one.

All except Calicut, which defects due to rebels. Gotta love those rebels.

By December 1520, all of India is ours, except for our faithful ally Gondwana. I probably should annex them too, but I sort of like the elephants and so on. Also, they have joined every war we’ve started without asking questions.

While waiting for the truces we also get another slider move and go innovative. One step closer to western tech. Irritatingly, it costs us a point of stability.

Next Time: More royal fatalities, and dancing in the East.

 

[oddman]

Excellent progress. Keep up the good work. I'd offer some more tangible advice or praise, but I'm afraid my EU3-experiences are mostly vicarious - and you, good sir, provide that quite admirably - so there's little original comment for me to give. Except keep up the good work. Which is hardly original.

 

[unmerged(7509)]

Seeing you taking over India just like that, it's no wonder they nerfed patriot rebels in the latest beta patch.

Well done anyway.

 

[Simac]

Excellent progress. Keep up the good work. I'd offer some more tangible advice or praise, but I'm afraid my EU3-experiences are mostly vicarious - and you, good sir, provide that quite admirably - so there's little original comment for me to give. Except keep up the good work. Which is hardly original.

All comments are appreciated, thank you for taking the time!

Seeing you taking over India just like that, it's no wonder they nerfed patriot rebels in the latest beta patch.

Well done anyway.

'Tis true. I'm a big fan of the nerfing. It's sort of silly how they defect to you just because you funded them. That said, in this case it wouldn't really have made any difference whether they'd defected to me or declared independence. New minors with no allies are easy pickings once the troops get rolling.

The reason the whole thing worked so well is that Deccan is a Sunni nation governing a whole load of Hindu subjects. I couldn't do as much damage to the Golden Horde (say).

The other issue with the rebels is that they can be a pain once they are spawned. For example, you can't attack patriots that you have funded, even if they go after your vassals/allies. Also, if they control a province that you are trying to occupy your troops won't siege it. I lost a few provinces to my own rebels that way, as they declared independance while my troops just sat there watching.