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

[Simac]

[anchor=part16]Part Sixteen: It Takes Two To Tangua[/anchor]

Another year, another opportunity for stomping our neighbours. This time, it's Tangua due a beating. The opportunity comes from the fact that they are scum (apparently). They also have fairly serious rebel issues.

The only downside is that they are allied with half of the Far East. Fortunately, most of them white peace out within the first year of the war.

All is going well, when the rebels decide to cause trouble. Arakan revolts out from under our sieging armies, forcing us to abandon Silhet and Manipur.

Fortunately, Tangua is nearly broken, so our course is clear...

The excitement is too much for our Sultan, who dies of shame as we betray yet another neighbour.

His heir, Kushruh I Timurid, is mediocore at best.

Unfortunately, his poor stats have consequences. We end up suffering from overextension.

Looking at the background of that screenshot, I suspect it's a problem that is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Arakan capitulate soon after, and we take Manipur, leaving only their capital.

Chiang Mai is the last Tanguan province to fall, coming under Mughal control in April 1525. We take all we can in the following peace. Kushruh may not be as sharp as his illustrious forbears, but he's determined to conquer like a Timurid.

In the end, we don't even need to conquer Silhet (capital of Arakan). A set of patriots we sponsored to distract the Tanguan army take it and we get the benefit.

I'm not 100% sure where the rebels are going next, perhaps to join their friends in Toungoo? Looks like I was right! Toungoo revolts to us about a year later. I wasn’t aware that rebels (even rebels you’ve sponsored) can just wander about over our territory as they wish.

In October 1528, Gondwana's fate is sealed. I didn't want to swallow them. I like their flag, and their plucky attitude to alliances. Also, I've been following the Gondwanaland AAR! Unfortunately, the event generator has other ideas.

I feel terrible guilt when we cancel their vassalisation. It gets worse when we disolve the alliance that has lasted decades, but we are Mughals, descendants of Tamerlane - pity is an alien emotion.

The guilt is too much for our current heir. Why do they keep dying? WHY?!

 

[unmerged(7509)]

Ah yes, the dreaded overextension. That was bound to show up sooner rather than later given your rapid expansion.

Is that a fleet from the Knights I see in the background of the last screenshot? It's not every day they make it all the way to India.

Have you had any contact with the Europeans yet?

 

[PrawnStar]

Still reading even if I don't comment too much - enjoying this a lot - would have been interesting to expand like that if you'd stayed tribal!

Is that a fleet from the Knights I see in the background of the last screenshot? It's not every day they make it all the way to India.

If you look carefully (and you are really sad) you'll see that the last screenie is of the southern Aegean so that Knights fleet is in its home port.

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part17]Part Seventeen: Best Served Cold[/anchor]

Revenge is a dish best served cold, as the proverb goes. Well, in April 1530 we get a chance to exact some on the Golden Horde.

The Horde have been on a downward trajectory ever since Muscovy beat them up and took half their land, now they are at war with half of Eastern Europe and their allies are suspect at best.

At a minimum, we aim to grab our two cores, along with the COT in Astrakhan. If possible we also want to grab one or more of the provinces marked with an asterisk, in order to cut the Horde in half and hopefully facilitate their collapse.

War is declared on the 22nd of April, 1530. One day later:

Apparently Oman are scared of us and dishonour their alliance.

As usual, we move troops into position, and wait for the Horde to come to us, while are Anatolian armies overrun Dulkadir. Now that we have high support provinces on the front line we don’t have to let them take half the country first this time.

The war is effectively won in the Battle of Alania:

If you look at the bottom left of that shot, you’ll see that Dulkadir is already beaten. We let them off relatively lightly, to avoid any infamy gain.

With us distracting the other Anatolian powers, Castille sees an opportunity.

I’m a little bit worried about their progress in taking over the old Byzantine Empire. Sooner or later they are going to come for us, and they have about 40,000 land tech. 17 troops stationed around the Bosporus. We are only at land tech. 11.

By the start of 1531, the Horde are beaten. The only question now is whether we can secure our war aims before either the rebels or their other enemies grab them. Kazakh have also had enough, and we take one of our few uncontested cores in the peace.

We also gain cores on the provinces we gained from the Mamluks. This has two main effects:

In the background you will also see that our sieges are progressing well. You may also see that Muscovy is busy grabbing every province that we aren’t actually occupying.

The problem is that the Horde won’t accept the peace deal we want. Astrakhan has too high a peace cost (being a rich COT), so we’re going to need more war score. This is difficult when Muscovite armies are occupying all the available provinces.

In the end we wait them out.

Muscovy gets what she wants (sort of), and the rest is a mopping-up exercise. The Horde have no army left, and are still fighting Nogai and co. We simply wander around assaulting the provinces we can get to.

Unfortunately, the harsh Russian winter is too much for our current heir, who dies after falling ill. Trained Medicus my eye.

By November 1532, the Horde is beaten totally.

This forces them to the table, and we can finally get the peace we want.

The result: an extended Northern border (all same culture provinces), along with a shiny new COT. On the right of that screenshot you can also see that Kazakh has taken huge chunks of Nogai as the junior partners in the Horde Wars (TM) fight it out. There’s also the beginnings of another rebel problem.

Sure enough, the Horde’s remaining lands implode. Ukraine start the fire – they really know how to kick a nation when they’re down.

In 1536 we get another slider move. This allows us to (finally) get our sliders into position to westernise with another innovative move. Our ruler doesn’t fancy the paperwork, however…

At the moment he’s also short an heir, so even if he dies it’s a regency council for us.

Fortunately, later that year…

A new heir! With admin. 8! The only down side is that he’s a newborn, so we’ve got sixteen years to wait before we can click the “westernise” button for the first time. Fortunately, Dulkadir have provided us with an outlet for our frustrations by declaring war on Mentese (our ally, since we released them).

Unsurprisingly, we get leadership once we wade in.

It’s a short war, all but over by the end of 1536. Kashmir and Dulkadir get stomped without putting up any sort of fight, and Kazakh have been in too many wars for too long to really resist.

Kazakh are contacted first about peace. We have a mission to fulfil, given the chance.

They are closely followed by Dulkadir.

Meanwhile, I wait with bated breath for our new mission. Will we be asked to conquer exotic foreign provinces? Will we be asked to colonise strange new lands?

Erm… Nope. Build some boats, says God.

 

[unmerged(7509)]

It seems Allah is less blood thirsty than the Timurid rulers. Maybe you should change religion instead of westernizing.

 

[Simac]

It seems Allah is less blood thirsty than the Timurid rulers. Maybe you should change religion instead of westernizing.

He's just having an off-day. Normal service will be resumed, I'm sure!

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part18]Part Eighteen: Conquista[/anchor]

Building boats is for traders and the Portuguese (in this game universe), so the Timurid leadership decides to cancel the "Build a Proper Fleet" mission and hope for something better. What we get is less expensive, but equally pointless.

Quite why a hundred province behemoth like us would care about the thoughts and feelings of a two province "horde" is beyond me. Still, a few months sending diplomats should take care of that one.

In the mean time, we get to watch the rebels redraw the map of the Eurasian Steppes.

Sure enough, the diplomats do their work, and yet another new mission is passed-down to us from on high.

Now that's more like it! Unfortunately, Cairo is the Mamluks' capital, so we can't actually conquer it without accruing a whole bunch of infamy. Looks like the mission may have to wait this time.

[As a side note, these sort of missions are really annoying. When the game gives you a "conquer X" mission, and X is a capital province, the game should provide a non-disasterous way of doing so. I don't mean make it free, but the Maluks are still pretty large, and Cairo is at least two wars away (probably more). Minimum infamy costs for isolating Cairo and then taking it would be 16. No way we can afford that. IMHO the mission generator should not hand out these missions with a capital as the target unless the target country is a OPM.]

Time passes while we wait for our infamy to abate a bit. Castille annexes Mentese, but this time we don't rush to the defense of our ally (Castille is a bit scary). Our infamy reduction efforts are undermined by a "Sultan's reputation tarnished!" event. Apparently the world sees Kushruh I as a "ruthless powermonger". I can't say that I disagree.

On the international stage, we gain a core on Tabouk via event. That will come in handy later on, I'm sure. Also, we benefit from a defection:

I can't remember funding any rebels in that area, but as we've seen before they can cover quite large distances.

Castille continue their conquering spree buy DOWing Dulkadir and annexing them. Bad Castille . That was our next target!

In June 1541 we get to government tech. 11, and gain our third national idea. Given that westernisation and the associated stability hits are just around the corner, we go with "Church Attendance Duty" to minimise the pain.

Kushruh I is obviously impressed by a violent sermon or something, because in the same year we declare war on Oman, The Mamluks and Adal over Tabouk. Everyone has the good sense to accept a white peace except Oman themselves, who en up handing over Tabouk and Al Jawf.

The following year, we reach production tech. 14, and are able to build textile manfactories. One of the major changes in HTTT (as far as I'm concerned) is with the costing of manufactories. It seems that now they stay cheaper for longer, and consequently spamming them is a viable option for bigger nations. We build four to start with, sticking to cloth producing provinces for maximum effect.

In 1543 we finally get the opportunity to deal with Castille:

This is a big deal for the European balance of power. Portugal is a big beast, owning huge chunks of America and North Africa. Castille meanwhile has become distracted by conquering Anatolia, and is currently at war with [takes a deep breath] Wallachia, Aragon, Granada, Portugal, The Papal State, Muscovy, and Trebizond. The net result of all this is that almost all of their Iberian holdings are either in the hands of their enemies or controlled by rebel scum. We'll never have a better chance to kick them when they're down. Anatolia is MINE, darnit.

We declare war soon after, and go for holy war rather than reconquest. More than one province will be taken if possible.

Unfortunately, two things happen soon afterwards:

1. The Castillian Stack of Doom (henceforth SOD) is revealed to be in our part of the world.
2. Portugal chickens out.

You can see the results in the screenshot above. We're about to lose the battle shown, and about 10,000 men who are wiped out after the retreat. That'll teach me to mess with technologically advanced mega stacks.

On the plus side, both of Castille's allies (Bavaria and Brandenburg, neither of whom can hurt us) white peace out soon afterwards. This has no material impact on the war, but it does improve our chances of getting a decent war score if we can just deal with the SOD.

Unfortunately, it's looking more like the SOD might deal with us first:

In fact, September 1545 isn't a good month. The SOD is on the move, The Knights (of all people) declare war on us... Oh, and Kushruh I dies with his heir, Garshasp, a mere stripling. The result? REGENCY COUNCIL.

A year or so passes. The SOD sieges and wins one more of our provinces, but at the start of 1547 we catch it in a pincer movement and finally win a battle. It's a bit of a pyrrhic victory, but it reduces the numbers in the SOD sufficiently that we can beat them. six months of ping pong later, and we've reduced the SOD to a few stragling survivors.

Two months on, The Knights white peace out without a single soldier having set foot on our soil. Pointless wars 'r' us. Castille accepts a fairly nasty peace with Aragon. Looking at the state of their once mighty nation, pity would probably be the appropriate emotion - if the Mughal leadership knew how to spell it.

Instead, we launch a rolling siege of every yellow province in range, culminating in this:

I have no intention of invading mainland Spain. In fact, the white blob in the top left of that screenshot is a menacing looking Austria, so our peace terms will involve using the (neutered) Castille as a buffer state.

In fact, we stick to the Anatolian provinces, and let Castille keep everything on the other side of the Bosphorus for as long as they can hold them. Which isn't long...

Go Byzantium!

While all that was going on, our regency council embarrased the court.

I'm not sure how they managed it, nor how the (non-existant) sultan got the blame. Maybe a bug there, Paradox! Speaking of strange happenings, how's this:

Yep, the Papal state have taken the Crimea.

 

[PrawnStar]

Nice result in Anatolia. Are you planning on holding the straits as the border until you've Westernised?

 

[MizarNX]

Yep, the Papal state have taken the Crimea.

And also Akureyri! Very good job so far! Keep it up!

 

[Rabid]

I'm surprised you didn't go for the Black Sea Trade modifier, it's not like Thrace is a poor province after all

 

[unmerged(7509)]

Another successfull war. The timing of the regency counsil could have been worse. Now you will get to burn some of all that infamy, so you're ready for more conquest once your next sultan ascends.

 

[ShiaoPi]

considering the papal states in the crimea my bet goes on religous rebels ceding it to the pope

 

[Simac]

Nice result in Anatolia. Are you planning on holding the straits as the border until you've Westernised?

Once again I am second guessed by PrawnStar! The border is sort of convenient. That said...

I'm surprised you didn't go for the Black Sea Trade modifier, it's not like Thrace is a poor province after all

Thrace would have been nice, but was too expensive to take in the peace. I forget the exact figures, but it was something like 26% on its own.

Another successfull war. The timing of the regency counsil could have been worse. Now you will get to burn some of all that infamy, so you're ready for more conquest once your next sultan ascends.

Honestly, you lot can see right through me! Sorry about the delay in updating this thread - It's not dead, it has merely been dormant while I waste weekends looking for housing in Olde London Towne.

Update with westernisation soon.

 

[Tjena Med Laxen]

I may not be able to see through you, but I can't wait for another update!

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part18]Part Nineteen: Go West[/anchor]

I really hate regency councils. Timurid Generals grow fat and complacent. Thousands of Timurid troops loiter about on reduced pay. In short nothing much happens.

Finally, on the 11th March 1551, a new era dawns for the Empire.

As his admin. 8, military 5 stats would suggest, Garshasp isn’t like his ancestors. He was raised by administrators, not conquerors, and has a secret liking for those funky Spanish helmets.

The month after his coronation, our stability returns to +3, and Garshasp gets his chance…

I’m not 100% sure how Garshasp has become known as a great conqueror, given that he hasn’t conquered a single province as yet. Maybe conquering the bureaucrats counts?

Anatolia feels the benefit, but there is grumbling in the court. Timurid nobles are not fond of ruffs.

On the technology front the policy is a great success. Our neighbour bonus for trade (the tech. that we are furthest behind in) is now 42.80 ducats per month.

Despite tooling-up with three level 5-6 stability advisors, and pumping 100% of our monthly income into stability we’re still faced with a wait of about a year and a half per stability point.

In the interests of interest (so to speak), we’ll skip ahead. The people don’t like the new western way of thinking much, but the revolts are pretty feeble. We gain a core on Jabal Shammar. We also gain an heir, Niku-siyar. I wonder what he’ll die of…

In December 1553, one of our armies fighting rebels has this happen to them:

That’s about the worst defeat I’ve ever suffered at the hands of rebels. Most of the time when things like this happen it’s a sign that I’ve forgotten to raise military maintenance, but in this case it was at the usual 100%. It may be that our armies need some attention.

Elsewhere, Savoy is now scum after taking over a big chunk of Italy and the Mediterranean coast.

In March 1555 we get another slider move. Again we go for centralisation. We don’t need it for westernisation any more, but we do need it for the “Military Modernisation” decision at some distant point in the future.

March 1558 rolls around, and Niku-siyar dies from a “strange fever”. It’s dangerous being an heir. The new guy is called Farrukh-siyar, and one suspects that his days are numbered.

In 1662, our stability finally gets back to +3. You know what this means? DING-DING, Round TWO!

This time Hormuz feels the benefit.

Our neighbour bonus for Trade tech. is now up to 99 ducats a month. Watch out Europe, we’re catching you!

Further good news a couple of months later, when one of our court artists turns out to be quite gifted…

Unfortunately, all of this waiting about hasn’t really decreased our infamy as much as I’d hoped. The regency council wasn’t great at infamy reduction, and these events don’t help:

Military modernisation cannot come soon enough.

 

[PrawnStar]

It may be dull waiting through westernisation but it's necessary. At least you get some BB burn. I'd probably take the stab hit rather than the BB hit on the Political Crisis event - but I learned my BB control playing EU2 where losing a point of BB can take several years.

 

[Marco__G]

incredible progress, gratz on taking India! Hope the rest goes well. Will you at any time be going into the west? Even though you stated you were going for Central Asia mostly, it'd still be cool once your westernized taking on the western powers.

 

[unmerged(7509)]

That's westernization over and done. How much is your infamy and infamy limit at the moment? Surely there must be room for conquest now that you have been sitting idle for a few decades.

I agree with PrawnStar on the stabhit instead of infamy. It's time to get some diplomats into your court, so you can start being a reel Timurid again without going over the limit.

 

[Simac]

[anchor=part20]Part Twenty: Modern Life Is Rubbish[/anchor]

Westernisation is over, but we're not quite ready to start conquering the rest of Eurasia just yet. First we need to deal with our slight infamy problem, and also modernise our increasingly antiquated military.

Military modernisation requires full centralisation, which isn't going to happen until at least the 1570s, so once again we have some time to pass. Unfortunately, our inflated infamy means that we can't pass the time by killing infidels willy-nilly.

Of course, that doesn't stop us grabbing cores where possible...

(Our core on Jabal Shammar was acquired while bickering over borders a while back. I may have neglected to mention it at the time. Probably too busy killing rebels and the like.)

This results in the usual round of pointless warnings... And an upsurge in smuggling??

Fortunately, we're not too bothered about stability at the moment.

The result of the war itself is never really in doubt. We declared war in August - by September Haasa's military is routed, and November sees them cave-in and give us back “our” land.

Despite our new-found military superiority, our empire still has its problems. If it's not plague and corruption...

...It's the fact that...

...almost everybody...

...hates westernisation.

“Tough luck, losers!”, says Garshasp I, who is not known as a bleeding heart type. He escapes further opprobrium by dying in September 1570.

Just when it was all going so well.

Once more we are unable to fight anyone, and none of our neighbours is stupid enough to attack us. Where are the Austrians when you need them?

15 noble regiments ride up to resist westernisation (again) and are soundly beaten, but otherwise not much happens. I really hate regency councils.

Fortunately, out heir is older this time, and the regency only lasts for three years. Our new monarch looks the normal Timurid type: good with a sword, brutally efficient by diplomatically inept.

Farrukh-Siyar I is crowned in March 1573. Three months later...

That must be some sort of record. Heirs have shorter lives than Mayflies in this game!

Elsewhere, Aragon is making her bid for the “Scum of Europe” crown by annexing Naples. I quite like this map – Europe has gone a bit nuts since we broke Castille.

Finally, in 1574 we get the slider move we need to put westernisation to bed once and for all. Unsurprisingly, we go one more step towards full centralisation. That leaves us needing one final step before we can enact the military reforms we've been gunning for.

Fortunately, I have a (somewhat gamey) solution... First, Farrukh-Siyar is rushed through military training and becomes a general.

One shock, six manoeuvre - from now on he'll be known as “Speedy” Farrukh-Siyar I!

Secondly, we pass the Militia Act.

The effects? +1 quantity, +1 centralisation, and +5% stability cost, +6% discipline until the end of the game. Obviously the centralisation is the point, but better discipline is no bad thing either. The negative stability modifiers are starting to add up though...

The net result is that we can now do this:

Now, an aside...

If I had my time again, I might do things differently here. I should have looked at the screenshot above and though “that's quite a lot of red writing – maybe I should reconsider this modernisation project.” I didn't quite realise the combined impact of lingering nationalism, combined with shaky legitimacy, combined with +6 revolt risk, combined with a stability of -3.

I thought the tribal succession crises were bad. Military modernisation is like throwing a party for rebels and then announcing that there's a free bar. Everyone wants to get in on the act.

With a 10% revolt risk almost everywhere and hundreds of provinces to patrol, things get exciting quickly...

It may just be the higher populations, or the higher level forts, but now they are spawning with big stacks of 12-15 regiments. Most of the time our 16 regiment armies can beat the rebel scum, but they can't kill them off in one battle. There's so many of them that we start to lose provinces while our armies ping-pong elsewhere. Every province we lose gains a “nationalism” modifier for a further rebel bonus.

This is what the end of each month looks like:

They are even starting to win the battles...

Farrukh-Siyar is asked what he thinks of the rebel “problem”, and responds with a tirade of curses in front of some visiting dignitaries. The people of Dadra are outraged.

By 1585, seven years after the “action and reaction” modifiers expired, we have the rebel problem under control. We (just) managed to avoid any defections, so despite the lost income, troops, and sleep the Mughal Empire endures.

Speaking of empires, the Russian Bear is rising in the North. This may have serious implications for our foreign policy – but more on that in a later update.

As 1590 hoves into view, we're back at +3 stability, with zero revolt risk in most places and 50% legitimacy. Best of all, our infamy is down in the green numbers for the first time in ages. The time has come to hire some skilled diplomats and test out the new improved army on our heathen neighbours.

 

[Rabid]

Only 65 more years of holy wars - better get cracking