The Choros Restoration: An Oirat AAR

[SpotThatOPM]

I figured this would be good practice for forming the Mongol Empire via the Timurids. For those of you wondering where my original Timurids AAR is going, it's going well. More updates to come along that category. Plus I've been hankering after hordes for a while now, so I figured I might do one of those runs. In case you missed it, here are the goals:

Get to 1821

Back in Control: Form Yuan and own all of China

Turning the Tide: Starting as a steppe nomad, embrace all institutions.

With any luck, we should be able to manage updating two AARs at once. Let's begin

 

[SpotThatOPM]

We start off by doing the usual horde opening. Not developing for Feudalism. Not when there's territory that has it I can steal from

Idea is to get the Tumu crisis. Just be at war with Ming with their incompetent 1/1/1 leader in charge (actually, the ruler needs to have less than 2 mil points for it to start).

We beat them in battle (which was easy. Hordes start off stronger than Chinese units at game start, plus they get -10% morale of armies and -5% discipline til the ruler dies) and rush for Beijing. Ming starts breaking our country apart. We declared a bit slow, so we gave them a chance to build up. Rookie mistake

Esen Taishi knows how to be sneaky. He gets onto Beijing with nothing interrupting him.

This is part of the event. We now have +20% morale of armies and +25% siege ability. This is going well (don't look at our warscore)

Rest in pieces, Mongolia.

Wall breach then water shortage. 2.9k Ming soldiers trot in defeat from a battle Mongolia gave to them. Ming's mandate sits at 50.

We get the capital. North China surrenders, their mandate tanks to zero and we go around killing stacks.

And again.

This is the strength of Ming at 0 mandate. They get +50% shock and fire damage taken. Their armies turn to butter, essentially.

And we're the hot knife.

We take a gamble with a much larger stack.

The situation. Separatists rip through the Empire, as their numbers dwindle fast.

We continue pushing.

A stack appears. You know the drill.

Stackwipe.

A successful end to the war, we're only in a little bit of crippling debt and Mongolia is facing civil war. At least Ming's facing one too. We take Ming's gold and pay our loans off.

 

[HistoryDude]

Not a bad start.

The Mongols shall reign over China once more!

 

[SpotThatOPM]

We're back and the no.1 pain has arrived: Rebels. They come and go, and we notice some states have come out of Ming, although they saved themselves from a true Mingsplosion. Truces end. You know what that means.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARR!

We move quickly onto Xi'an.

Wiped.

Here's another stack.

Don't you hate it when you're about to get a piece of land and a breakaway state goes "Guess I'm existing now."

And another one bites the dust. This is why Mandate should never, ever be taken. Get to low Mandate, good luck fighting those wars. Especially after passing a reform.

Ming is sent packing.

They always siege poor Mongolia first. Vassals are fun to abuse

We merc up. Not like we have an option, we have negative manpower (thank god it doesn't show actual values, they'd look horrible)

We don't have our siege modifiers anymore
We get three Status Quos in a row. Murderous thoughts intensify.

I guess our luck was paid back with time. We get Wall Breach.

Then food shortage.

28% with a food shortage. We get...

the win

Drat, they're sieging off Xi'an. Gotta get there.

35% with wall breach. Please don't take the fort back...

We said "Don't let them have the fort". Guess we forgot RNG was deaf and Fortuna is drunk.

We kick their army off the fort and start resieging it.

Here's a handy tip: If the defenders of a fort fall below 100, you take the fort instantly. Here's how it works:
Fort has 100 garrisons -> New turn, check whether garrison is below 100, apply garrison change (eg food shortage, bringing it down to 99)
Fort has 99 garrisons -> New turn, check whether garrison is below 100, fort surrenders.

Meanwhile, our mercs move west.

Or not. Fall back, men.

Our vassal arrives with some units to help us! That'll keep Ming away

We move to siege Wuchang, Mongolia attacks Chengdu.

Muscovy rivals Uzbek. War between the two shouldn't be far away.

Can we peace? I think we can.

Aristocratic gets unlocked as our first idea group.

Not a bad start we have here
Ming is on the road to collapse with extremely low mandate. Let's see if we can keep this rate of conquest up.

 

[HistoryDude]

You're doing very well. Hopefully you can keep it up.

Yeah, rebels are a gigantic pain.

 

[SpotThatOPM]

Despite all that, Ming still looks very strong on paper. In practice, they're a joke.

Qizhen dies, Qiyu takes power. Their heir is weak claim.

Why? WHY! WE never get you via that event! If you won't have us, you can't let the AI have you either! Stupid Turk lovers. It'll be what runs their nation into the ground.

You DARE! Come at me, you filthy scumbags!

All foolish Chagatai warriors shall perish!

Fight me!

Fools! You will never best us in combat!

Does it feel good? Do you like the situation you're in?

No? Then perish like a fool.

Go get em.

Well that's where half their army went. Have fun, because you're never getting off the fort.

Where is our money going? Why can't we have funds?

Their capital falls. We could push for demands.

Keep up the assault!

They learned their lesson. Sarig Yogir would accept vassalisation.

Welcome to the family, little one!

 

[SpotThatOPM]

Where were we? Oh yes, we just beat Chagatai up.

Oh come onnn... how does this happen? We have 0 corruption, we're the most honest traders you guys have seen!

Yay, rebels. Woohoo, right after I mothballed my forts they spawn ON a mothballed fort.

Mongolia is annexed. Expansion routes into Manchuria are unlocked.

Hey, look! We have 353 dev, making us a GP! It also serves a sinister purpose... you'll see

Uzbek and Chagatai go at it. Good. They'll be at war forever.

Separatists? Chagatai separatists? Get rid of them, that province is needed to form Yuan!

Expansion routes aren't going to be used by anyone anytime soon, so it's time for:
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!

Huh. We should stop lying to our estates. Meh. It's a habit we have at this point. Not gonna like the wars of conquest are gonna slow, plus we demand loot to fix the economy!

Meanwhile, we move to put down some separatists. Now let's find some Khanates, poor -

... magnificent things who I don't want to hate me. They allied the Shogunate of Japan? Hmph. This will save them for now.

Oh man, I sure love moving across half my country to beat some rebels up, this game is fun! /s

Huh. The protection Ashikaga offers allows Jianzhou to grow quite large. A little bit too large for our liking.

Oh come on, that's just insulting now. 5/6/5? Why can't we ever get a blessed ruler? Jianzhou lures us in with tempting land, only to crush our dreams. Stupid shogunate. Mental note made to do something about it later.

OH BOY, MOVING ACROSS HALF MY COUNTRY AGAIN. THIS IS FUN. /s

We move in to crush Nivkh.

Some more rebels spawn, thankfully ones closer to our armies. Pesky Yan separatists. Hmph.

We move over to beat some separatists up.

Better start getting Renaissance. Don't want to have to develop for it too late.

We finally knock those separatists out. Ming gets into a regency.

We move in and wipe some minor stacks.

Cmon. Missing 15 reasons before annexation. Gotta get Nivkh out.

Amazing. The Timurids have exploded, Ajam moved into them and they've only got Khorasan and Fars as vassals. Chagatai beat Uzbek. Prepare for a strong western Khanate.

More separatists... yay
We prepare for another wave of them.

But we can finally push a peace offer... right?
Eh, who are we kidding. We can wipe the rebel stacks easily. Next up is the consolidation of Manchuria, because development.

 

[SpotThatOPM]

We export some rebels into China. Good, stay there. Traitors are not welcome.

Guess Ming's still going to kill them for us. They're at 20 mandate. Don't ask us how, they just are.

We demand loot and land for the great Khanate of Oirat, so it's time for...
You guessed it, war!

Let's go!

There goes their entire army.

We resume to looting, but we know there's always a battle around the corner.

We move in for the capital of Kuru.

There is always a battle around the corner.

Always.

We begin the siege of Kuru.

Drat, we won't be able to catch them.

Mwaha, mwahaha. See what I mean? 300 dev, not being the EoC's subject/ally and not having a truce with them - nomadic frontier. Sure, war against Ming is good but have you heard about centralising and withering them away while at peace?

Back to Manchuria. Total annexation, nothing more, nothing less.

Why can't we catch their armies? Get them!

Muscovy makes peace with Uzbek. Guess our dominant Khanate will be the Chagadeyids.

So close to Renaissance...

We should probably invade Donghai as well. They're not co-belligerent, so we can't take any land from them.

But first, we must occupy and loot! We demand all the loot!

Sarig Yogir helps out, Kuru sits at 42%.

But first we must stackwipe this annoyance.

Despite being outnumbered, we get excellent rolls and we crush them in a battle.

Our magnificence, our talent... are we the Mongol Empire waiting to happen?

Chant it with us, everybody:

Stack and wipe. Stack and wipe. Stack and wipe!

Success! Donghai is dropped, Yeren is fully annexed. We're starting to lock big and strong now.

 

[SpotThatOPM]

Pasttime update: Rebel Routing. Yeah rebels are coming. No way to avoid them except spending huge amounts of mil points, which we aren't doing.

Here they come!

Renaissance is in the capital. We can embrace and tech up soon.

We've embraced the Renaissance! Go us

A new Emperor ascends, a diplomat who isn't a diplomat.

Sengge's silver tongue does wonders for us. +10% relations improvement speed.

We can vassalise Kara Del!

Welcome to the family!

Jianzhou insults us by not having Renaissance and being ahead in tech. They'll fall... soon.

Tick tock...

We get to miltech 7. Starting to pull ahead.

Peace isn't doing our nation much good. The people are getting uppity and are resorting to revolts to get some military action rolling.

Crush the revolt!

Korea and Jianzhou are at war. Since Jianzhou doesn't have a navy, they must of called Ashikaga in. Both are distracted.

Nomad Frontier fires for Ming. They're stuck with -0.3 mandate per month and will be frozen at 0 mandate and incur disaster penalites. Time to end this Empire!

See what I mean? Frozen at 0 mandate.

Time to prepare for...

WAR!

 

[SpotThatOPM]

Ming decides to attack us, despite having 1/3 of the numbers and no mandate.

Oh. They had reinforcements waiting. Still wasn't very smart. Changxun leads his army, and is sent packing.

Ming exports rebels into our territory. Yay...

Huh. That's a big stack of Ming troops. Maybe they won't attack us?

They decide they'd rather not and we take Wuchang.

Might as well take care of the smaller stacks to weaken Ming's manpower.

We move into Jin (they are a tributary of Ming) to get a Ming stack deleted.

That stat difference... what is causing it?

We get ready to start sieging again.

Ming stacks are everywhere. Can't really do much about them, this stack is our smaller one.

We let our main stack catch up and we bring a stackwipe in.

Hmph. They're unsieging. Gotta do something about that.

Wait, if Ming's defenses are so far forward, why can't we go around and siege Yangzhou?

Or not. Now we have to resiege Wuchang.

Ming spreads their forces thin. This will make things easy.

Liang separatists sit in Nanyang. Wuchang is the wrong culture, they won't attack us.

Of course they ignore the rules of rebels being in primary culture lands and hit Wuchang. We stackwipe them.

Wuchang falls again and we move to Runing.

We decide to flank their defenses from Shangqiu to Xuzhou to the Imperial Court.

We move into Haizhou into Huai'an into Yangzhou. Their defenses don't seem to grasp the situation and idle.

What? They flanked us? Grr. More work for us to do.

The gates are open. All units move to Yangzhou!

Their defenses are still sitting idly, not moving. 39k Ming troops are immobilised.

Even when a friendly army moves through they still won't move? Are they striking against the Emperor?

Of course they're going to go for our capital...

We sit on -14% for the siege.

Food shortage. Those units are striking, we're sure of it. Can such a thing happen?

They begin sieging Wuchang off again. Great. 21% on Yangzhou and we get...

Water shortage. Next siege phase and we get...

The fort

We rush to Wuchang to prevent them from unsieging it.

42% on Wuchang.

We move as fast as possible before they get it.

All of a sudden the units activate and move for Wuchang.

We stackwipe them and prevent a capture of the fort.

We peace out, taking 9 provinces in two full states. We're getting stronger

 

[SpotThatOPM]

Time for some more rebels and mapstaring.

Rebels first, though.

They're gone.

Proper Mingsplosion when? They had Min, Jin and Yan as breakaway states. Too bad these are noble rebels.

OE goes to zero, most rebels call it quits.

We integrate Sarig Yogir.

Jianzhou takes a big bite out of Donghai.

Ashikaga broke with Jianzhou ages ago, and they're left with no allies. Time to show them who's the better Khan.

Our 3/4/4/0 meets their finest 2/1/1/0. He laughs in their face and makes them do the walk of shame.

They attack us, this time we have the terrain advantage.

Stackwipe.

We begin pushing into Jianzhou.

Our 3/5/4 becomes a 4/5/4. Not gonna argue, a 13-point ruler is good.

Korea decides to invade as well.

They beat us to most of the western provinces, while we reign supreme in the central and eastern regions.

They siege Ningxia, so our attention is diverted. We move to kill it.

They like us? What is this nonsense? We should be feared, not liked!

We get to miltech 8. We are starting to lead the world and get ahead of Europe.

We get call for peace (stupid Koreans occupying the land we need) and we make peace with Jianzhou. We attack Ming again.

 

[SpotThatOPM]

We go after their larger stacks first.

No prisoners.

NONE!

Stackwipe.

Why did you do this Korea, just... why...
You've made two new headaches for us, and you didn't even take anything either.

Stack and wipe. Stack and wipe. Stack and wipe.

Finally, something to brag about! None of our enemies have been gifted once, we have finally received something!

For a mission, we improve with Sirhind.

We start planning on how we issue a cleanup. It's gonna happen sooner or later.

We attack Yangzhou and Nanjing.

When there is light, there is darkness. Always.

Yangzhou falls, Nanjing gets a wall breach.

Nanjing falls and we plan to get a border with Yangzhou.

They won't accept peace? Guess we're gonna be sieging stuff for the long haul.

We move to Wuchang and Nanyang.

Ming carpet sieges us up north and attacks Jianzhou, rebels pop in Manchuria.

We take a few ducats and some land.

Nice. Our green tech contrasts with their yellow. Tech differences are going to make the conquest a lot easier.

 

[SpotThatOPM]

Time to raze! We unlock humanist ideas (it's going to help with the conquests of China) and get our first idea. Speaking of which, what are our ideas?

Huh. Those are pretty good. We get +20% cav combat ability and -20% core creation cost. Already that's powerful. Key ones to look for are -15% AE impact and the +5% discipline.

We move along and clean a revolt up. Age of Reformation begins soon.

We move to fix it.

Time to clean the mess that Korea left for us.

Stackwipe. Now we just sit on them and their nation falls.

Colonialism has spawned. We develop for it.

Separatists... yay
Mental note made to fix the economy.

We reunite the Mongol tribes.

We are all Mongols!

The Mongols shall rise again!

 

[SpotThatOPM]

Lots of perma-claims. Maybe we can do something about it?

Ming declares war on Haixi. They're trying to regain lost flair by extending their Empire's reach.

We decide consolidation of Manchuria will have to do. It'll require breaking the Ming hegemony here first, however.

They have a grip on the Manchuria region, but only barely.

Crownland exceeds 60%. Our control over the tribes is looking solid.

The tribes are disunited, this is perfect. Consolidation could be done with multiple wars at once if the Ming hadn't made tributary arrangements with them all.

Tribal rebels, gotta take care of them before the next wars.

That's been taken care of. Let's prepare a bit more.

We move units into position.

Oh? Korea broke tributary status? Time for an invasion!

Go!

Time to engage them in combat.

Stackwiped! We finally accomodated a proper template: 10/5/5. Good fighting power.

They attack us and are repelled.

Korea peaces out with Ming. We get ready to continue the fight.

64% on Hanseong with a forced breach.

We get Colonialism in Kobdo.

With that out of the way, we target the small Khanate of Donghai, overlords of Nivkh. We can steal them for ourselves!

 

[SpotThatOPM]

We move to catch Nivkh's forces.

Our brilliant 4/5/4 takes the helm, and we get a 2/6/0 heir.

We annex Donghai and get Nivkh as a vassal.

Humanist is our second group. It'll help stabilise the Empire and prevent revolts.

Our next target is Jianzhou, again.

We attack a loose stack moving around in Korchin.

Rebels rip throughout Ming Manchuria, with Jianzhou leading them. I feel like this will destroy the Ming remnants here.

Tribal rebels pop again. Get used to them, they'll be the most common rebel type.

Let's make sure they don't have a standing army to resist.

We take their provinces, Korchin finishes them off. Manchuria is looking more and more consolidated. This is good.

Huh. Jianzhou rebels force Ming's grip on the region? Time for a third round, and since they've been released, there aren't any truces protecting them. WAR!

Time for re-annexation.

We take Shenyang and move for Hetu Ala.

We ally Ashikaga. It secures us from an attack across the sea.

But, again: more war with China must be had!

 

[HistoryDude]

China seems to be falling under Oirat domination...

Let the Yuan Dynasty be renewed!

 

[SpotThatOPM]

Let's start the carpet sieging. No no, don't run. It's better for you to die sword in hand.

gg no re

They found our spy? Hmph. Not necessary. Could walk circles around Ming easily.

We capture Yangzhou and start moving to stackwipe some stacks.

Easy. This is why Mandate is bad at low mandate. Just don't take it, if that's your thing. Or do. Whatever. It's up to you. We prefer being nomads, so we can pillage things.

Tip for those at low Mandate: Never split your stacks up.

Debt isn't an issue. We're already in debt and we make a good amount of money anyways. Not wasting that 1 stab.

Turns out some South-east Asian nations are quick to arrive. Hmph. No matter. They'll eat Empire of China in name and go collapse.

 

[SpotThatOPM]

oh come... on... BE GENTLE! Please?
Never take 100 OE unless you're confident you can manage it. Or you're doing a WC. OE is a number on WC.

Vivid green = very good tech

Ming's going to lose the EoC and Ayutthaya's getting it. Meanwhile we marvel at our court: 4/5/4 ruler with Strict and Inspiring leader (Conqueror trait would make him the perfect conqueror, apart from being 6/6/6) and our consort is below average with Conqueror. Good setup for conquests.

STOP!

oh come on, 66k Tribal Rebels? Yeah we aren't going through that hell. Ducats are kinda hard to come by, manpwoer not so much.

We arrange a compromise and release Xi.

How'd you get here? No matter. WAAAAR!

Could kill Ming some more...

Like father, like son.

We wouldn't get much from killing Ming. Plus they're an OPM. Nobody will care.

Jianzhou falls, hopefully for the final time.

So does Korchin. No annoying tribes are in the way of us now! TO CHINA!

 

[HistoryDude]

Most of China is now conquered. The Ming are dead!

Who holds the title of Emperor of China?

 

[SpotThatOPM]

No tribes left to kill. Maybe some warlords will do.

Time to kill Yan.

Ming's getting crushed everywhere. After this finishes, Crisis of the Ming dynasty will fire and screw them up even harder.

There goes Ming. Miao pops out. Any nation that gets released is easy pickings.

Ming continues to crumple up and die.

We invade Miao.

Jin comes along for the ride but gets wiped efficiently.

Miao gets annexed. Everybody is running up and down Ming.

We get influence ideas. Good for LD reduction, also gives us reduced diplo-annex cost and some dip-rep.

That 20% CCR reduction, so so powerful.

See what I mean? Not only do they not have control of Beijing and Nanjing, they now have this. No mandate for Ayyuthaya, they're condemned to collapse.

Ming peasants fight our separatists. Thanks.

Ruler change. The 2/6/1 is in charge.

Japan unites itself and invades Korea.

We fully fill Aristocratic ideas. We now get a tech cost reduction, stacking with -10% miltech cost too.

Ayutthaya begins cultivating a lot of enemies. Us included.

We steal their maps and see what we need to accomplish exactly.

The estates tell us to go vassalise Kham. We oblige accordingly.

Wars are becoming simpler and easier. We need a bigger threat to fight.