Session 6
Player Changes
Venice, Portugal, and Ming are all officially gone. Mughals was subbed this session, as was Spain.
The Long Peace, Reprise (Session Start—1545)
The session started as it ended, with the world more or less totally peaceful. Personally, I worked on finishing Regimental Camps and converting provinces to Protestant while burning the rest of my inflation. I teched towards Land (Land tech 23 gives excellent new units, and 22 gives a big increase in infantry Fire as well as cavalry Shock, and a new cavalry unit type) and towards Government (Government 22 gives a new NI, which I’d spend on Battlefield Commissions to counteract Austria’s choice of the same), and moved towards Centralization.
Italy approached me asking if I was interested in continuing our NAP until 1585, which I was all too happy to agree to given no end to my Austrian rivalry in sight. Soon after, he mounted yet another invasion of Great Britain, this time seizing some British land as vassals (initially Wales and Cornwall, although he traded them for Ireland later).
Britain falls once again to invading hordes.
The RNG was determined to help me catch up to Russia in our competition for most event-driven stability hits in a game, and gave me two back-to-back Monetary Reforms as well as a few other minor stability hits. Last session, Netherlands and I agreed to trade 400 ducats and some advice in exchange for a Javanese province for my East India Trading Company—by far the best, along with Taiwan, since they're the only 5 which can easily be your state's culture—and I took the opportunity to fulfill that agreement given my proximity to Naval 20, which I reached soon after.
Found Indian Trading Company is one of the most powerful decisions in the game.
As it turned out, the strife that started with Italy was the beginning of constant war throughout the session, next erupting in a war between Russia and the Netherlands over the division of China. While the war was fairly close, Russia prevailed and acquired most of China in the peace, while nearby the Mughals were soundly defeated by a much larger and higher tech Ottoman army. With another move towards Centralization, things were looking fairly good for France.
The Great Western War (1545—Session End [1552])
In February of 1545, Austria accidentally announced in public rather than private that an unnamed person (who was obviously Prussia, since Italy was NAPped) should prepare to declare war in July. I was thankful for the few months’ warning, giving me a chance to build up some men and regenerate the manpower in time for the DoW, not to mention turn up maintenance, organize generals, claim Defender of the Faith, hire a Discipline advisor, and move men towards the front. When Prussia and Austria DoWed they rushed forward, and I was initially left on the back foot due to the much superior Austrian generals; they had 4 shock, while I could recruit nothing better than 1 (except for my already-existing 2 shock king).
The war starts with some initial setbacks and occupied territory.
After about a year of fighting, I was able to recruit a 3 shock general and start to turn the war around. Prussia’s entire army got annihilated when I surrounded him after a victory against Austria’s main force, and I advanced into enemy territory. Austria refused to call in his vassals after losing the last two wars to warscore, so I declared war on Trier with no casus belli and annexed it; a steep price for infamy, but without any way to get military access from such a critical area it was a massive pool of attrition.
Finally, by 1548 I briefly took the lead in generals for the first time all game, hiring a 5 shock and a 4 shock to counter Austria’s various 4 shock generals. With a brief retreat to replenish my mostly depleted armies, my manpower plummeted but I was rewarded by the wipe of Prussia’s entire army once again as well as around 100,000 Austrians. A 6 shock general soon after made me very happy indeed.
A new dawn begins; the dawn of semi-competent French leadership!
From here the war became somewhat of a back-and-forth. My annexation of Trier offended Austria and caused him to vow to fight on until victory or utter defeat, and with Prussia’s promise not to peace without Austrian consent, a grind became obviously inevitable. With no other major powers interested in joining in exchange for a bribe, I started playing more conservatively to account for my significant manpower deficit and Austria's new 5 and 6 shock generals. While I had hit rock bottom while Prussia was on around 300,000 manpower remaining and Austria with 150,000 (albeit with about as many troops combined as I had alone), I soon turned things around and my manpower started to slowly climb back up, wiping the occasional enemy army as the opportunity arose.
With 1552 approaching, and with it the end of the session, my 6 shock general decided to retire early, and with yet another Prussian army approaching things continued to crawl on. However, Austria made a few critical miscalculations towards the end of the session, and by the time the session was over, I found them with less men combined than I had alone, in a giant manpower comeback given the short time span.
Even as the session ended, battles raged on.
A quick conversation after the game indicated that they have agreed to not peace out until left with no alternative, and given my slow progress this war seem far from over. While they have been being torn apart of late, the death of my 6 shock general combined with their slow but steady approach towards even footing on Land tech will make the beginning of next session interesting indeed. Whatever the result, the ground is already bloody; 655,646 brave Frenchmen have given their lives to slay 1,007,001 evil Germans, and countless more on both sides have died of hunger and disease.
Stats and map
http://www.europa3.ru/cgi-bin/mpsta...e=int&season=comp-2013&game=XVI&yearsave=1552
The world in 1552.
Comments
Fighting a 2v1 war is hugely taxing given your opponents’ much higher attention span, and unfortunately I didn’t take very many screenshots. In addition, I can’t go into as much detail about my thoughts after the session as I’d like, given this information is public. Next session should be interesting!
For those of you who like saves, I have a save from 1549 from a rehost, to give you an idea of how grim the war looked midway through.
Here it is.
