• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
More good stuff there! No need to be nice to Byzantium playing nice in politics really wasn't the Byzantine way.

Hope you did take the chance to read the EU2 AARs - they are both successful Trezibond World Conquests by 1650 ;)

Well, playing nice certainly was the Trebizondian way, allowing them to survive just a bit longer. Wikipedia even states (without mentioning a proper source, unfortunately):

[Trebizond] was an empire more in title than in fact, surviving by playing its rivals against each other, and offering the daughters of its rulers, who were famed for their beauty, for marriage with generous dowries, especially with the Turkish rulers of inland Anatolia.

Shame we can't get Royal Marriages with Muslims in the game! However, this most certainly explains some peculiarities of our situation. Firstly, our incredible trade income. Of course exporting beautiful daughters makes some good money! :D And second, our low manpower is also explained perfectly. Everybody must be busy making more beautiful daughters. ;)

I scooped the other Trebizond AARs a bit. 1650 sounds terribly soon to me though.

Another update is coming up shortly.
 
Last edited:
Part V - The Volatile Era (1430-1445)

In the 1430's, our whole region can be accurately as well as metaphorically illustrated like this:

house_ablaze.jpg


Some provinces change hands more than 3 times in 10 years. Georgia doubles in size, then halves again returning right where they were. Trebizond suffers a lot of enemy incursions and (sometimes successful) hostile sieges. Therefore, the volatile era.
Nevertheless, we seem to emerge kind of victorious and ever more glorious!

Part of the trouble was a shipload of rebel scum, which had me constantly running around the country while I was also trying to keep an offensive going. All the hassle made me forget to make a whole lot of screenshots.

But this is surely compensated by the accomplished of a mission I put myself to quite a while ago. Yes, we finally took the lake that is no lake! At the end of this session, our horses can finally drink no water while we take no swim and take a sunbath at the nonexistent beach of Lake Van. So relaxing!

Well, on to business.

We start off with a nasty event. The nobles are demanding stuff because they think we're doing well financially. Well, we do have some money in the bank, but that's because I just took out a loan to pay for more regiments. I'm even planning to build an actual navy someday. All right, we pay the nobles.

81nobles.jpg


The Golden Horde is getting some serious eduction in warfare from the Russians, which allows us to finish the Ottomans.

82horde.jpg


We convert some people and siege some others. I think this makes Bithynia our best province now.

83convert.jpg


The Ottomans haven't managed to get back on their feet. A tiny army is quickly destroyed and we get sieges going everywhere. Note how the Hungarians are crushing Serbia. We'll probably have a land border with Hungary soon then. They are big, scary and terribly advanced. Best to try and make friends, I think. Oh yes, we started Greekifying our province names! It confuses me to no end actually, but I decide to stick with it.

84siegeall.jpg


The Golden Horde is in shatters and peaces out with Georgia. Good, this eliminates any risk of their land forces getting to us. Sieges aren't progressing a whole lot with such small armies, and rebels are popping up in Anatolia.

85just85.jpg


Here we see the Timurids building up a big force in Sivas. And Georgia got a mission to annex Ak Koyunlu. Noooo, Van's mine! :(

86badstuff.jpg


Funny. Castille is doing poorly. I guess the New World will be all-Portuguese then. Less colonizers means a slower overall colonization rate, meaning we have a bigger chance to get to California first! So I'm happy with this.

Around this time, Georgia declares on Ak Koyunlu, dragging in Qara Koyunlu, the Timurids and a bunch of others. Wtf? I feel very bad about it but I decline. I'm busy! And I don't want them to have Van. I mean to re-ally them soon though.

87weak.jpg


They quickly subjugate northern Qara Koyunlu on their own. Whoa, that's unexpected.

88georgia.jpg


Meanwhile, most of the Ottoman sieges have concluded, except for Edirne. Rebels are really running amok, and the recently defeated Qara Koyunlu decide to attack Armenia. Wait, what? That's not just unexpected, that's bizarre. We help this time

89meanwhile.jpg


We now have two wars going on and we hire our first general while we have to divide our attention between rebels and the war in the east.

90general.jpg


Edirne falls and we take what we can. The Ottomans are now reduced to Bursa (we want it, but it's the capital) and Albania (wasteland). I totally forgot about the ships I built, but we have 4 of them now!

91victory.jpg


The Golden Horde is in serious trouble, we make peace. Nothing there for us to gain! Notice that the tides have changed for Georgia. We're allies in war for the moment and we will get to them as soon as we cut through the rebels. Who are occupying their eastern provinces anyway? Is that Chagatai? :confused:

92horde.jpg


Why do they do this, instead of, I don't know, protecting their capital mayhaps?

93why.jpg


Manuel IV bites the dust fighting an angry mob. Men armed with pitchforks, clubs and torches lift him off his horse and dance on him. His last words reportedly were "Aaargrrrtbrglksmrtghgtgrmph!". Odd, I didn't know he spoke Georgian.

Since the whole nation is geared towards the production of beautiful daughters and baby boys are often eaten for breakfast, the successor is from a rather distant part of the family tree. This is good as it breaks the line of idiot kings. Long live King David!

94king.jpg


The coronation of king David seems to be a good time to snap out of game stuff for a while and discuss the respective flags of our past and present neigbours Candar and Karaman.

..........
Karaman.png
...........
Candar.png


Isn't that symbol a Star of David? But they're not Jewish, are they? One might be rather confused about the existence of Jewish states in 15th century Anatolia.

But no, it's not Jewish. The beyliks of Candaroğlu and Karamanoğlu were proper Muslims.

The symbol we recognize as the Jewish Star of David is geometrically a hexagram. It's origins aren't exactly clear and they are much debated, but in the Abrahamic religions it is unanimously associated with David and Solomon. Both are held in high regard in Christianity, Judaism and Islam alike. The Quran names them Dawud and Suleiman, and they are wise prophets and kings. Well, then there's bunch of legends around all that, and in the end you find out that the symbol, at that time, was identified as the Seal of Solomon (Suleiman)

Only after the rise of zionism (19th century onwards), WW2 and the establishment of Israel (1948) did it attain the status of a typically Jewish symbol.

One last factoid spree before we return to our beloved Trebizond. Did you know that the national Red Cross branches in Muslim countries use a Red Crescent instead of a cross? And a Red Star of David is used in Israel? Finally, Sri Lanka and India have tried to introduce a Red Swastika. Weird, the rest of the world didn't like it at all.

Back to the game! It's april 1435 and Georgia is losing half of their recent conquests. Van too! Go go go!

95toobad.jpg


A bunch of muslims invade while we keep on getting shitty events.

96nasty.jpg


Ah, a good one at last. We pick manpower.

97goodone.jpg


A year passes while battle rages back and forth. We're low on manpower and high on rebels. We win some, lose some, buy some people out... A whole lot, but let's combine the bad stuff into one picture shall we?

98ugh.jpg


Sometimes we control the province of Van we covet so much, sometimes we don't. It still hasn't got a fort.

99vanatlast.jpg


100peace.jpg


But in the end we turn out to be totally victoglorious! We take Van and 100 ducats. We are at Van at last! Like I said, no fort, so we build the Van Fortress


101vancastle.jpg


We're going to rename it to Vaspurkan, as that's what the Empire used to call it when it was last under her control (like eh, 400 years ago). However, if we expand any more to the east from here, we'll soon run out of Greekish names.

Now we're back to rebel flogging! Everyone gets back to peace for a while and we happily renew our alliance with Georgia. Oh, and we get a core on the Byzantines.

103allies.jpg


102hm.jpg


Hmmm. At least the Timurids can't declare war on us themselves now.

104landtech.jpg


Now we have our hands free, solving the rebel problem is easy again. We attain some tech too.

Some while ago, Albania defected to the Byzantines, and I did not realize at the time that this meant that the Ottomans were down to one province. Exit Ottoman Empire. Even before they historically captured Constantinople! I think this gives the game timeline *some* credibility, because if the Ottomans were to be stopped, early on would probably have been the best time. 1453 just never happened. Shame 1204 did. Oh, never mind that.

105exitotto.jpg


In 1440, we feel up to a new fight again. The list of allies is good for nothing, I think. Yet I forget that my naval power is still next to naught (1 galley, 4 cogs) and that I need to cross the Sea of Marmora to get to my European provinces. Hmm yeah. That's the third time I use the verb 'to forget' this update. Maybe I shouldn't be playing at 5am.

106fight.jpg


In the next year, we quickly conquer and annex Karaman, pay off a loan and ally with Greece ( who popped up in Kaffa some time ago ).

107karaman.jpg


---------- update continued in the next post because of image limit ----------
 
Last edited:
Part V section II - It's like a reprise

Little text here. Just finishing the update.

Then a few years and a huge amount of ducats are wasted trying to kick out Moroccan and Algerian invaders. It's awful, as I can't get to them, they think they are winning but they really aren't, still they won't make peace and my WE is skyrocketing.

108wasted.jpg


Peace comes at last and it's white. No problemo.

109tunis.jpg


Without all the mercs we're suddenly doing great financially. Armenia accepts a vassal proposal and we train a bunch of glorious soldiers just because we can. For the first time, we have a bit of a manpower reserve! (9k) In the background, the Golden Horde is fighting the Timurids and Shirvan and Dagestan are back under QK control, I believe they defected but I missed it.

110vassal.jpg


It appears we forgot (fourth time today) to update our preferred troop type. At least the Swarm Cavalry we'll be using from now on is quite cool! It occurs to me that we really should send some of those daughters to the Mamluks and Hungary. Show our good nature and such.

111type.jpg


We have a temporary Casus Belli on the Byzantines because they annexed Aydin. Aydin was the orange colored minor in Smyrna, in case you didn't know, and we were guaranteeing them. We consider declaring war for a while...

112cb.jpg


But on second thought, hey, let's ally them instead and go for the heathens!
I hope I don't sound hopelessly chaotic here.

113allies.jpg


So once again we've expanded some. Our cartographers' guild is very happy with the continuous wars as it provides them with a steady source of income. Profiteers, I say.

Summary 1445 AD:
14 provinces (that's a conquer rate of 0.325 provinces a year, or an average relative growth of 6.8% per year)
1 core (Trebizon)
1 vassal (Armenia)
4 allies (Byzantines, Armenia, Georgia, Greece).

The Greek world stands proud and fairly united against the endless waves of heathen incursions! Huzza!

114map.jpg
 
Last edited:
I love all the little random facts you throw around. It's a great AAR! Too bad you can't form the Byzantines now, seeing how you can't hurt them in any way. But the heathens are hurting! You've triumphed over the turks! Go Trebizond!
 
haha nice AAR :) will follow this :) reminds me a bit of a armenian game i had :) but yeah, an inheritance of the byzantines would be nice, but anyway, if that dosn't happen, kill them!, remove those imposters! xD
 
Whoo, thanks all for all the comments!

Rabid: I think my total in-game EU3 playtime must surpass 2000 years, yet I've never inherited anything so far. Don't know why :(

Brandenburg III: Thank you! Hm yeah, the inflation. We'll fix it when we'll fix it, I guess.

Enewald: Ooh, ancient Pontus! :cool: but they resisted the Romans while we technically ARE Romans, right? :p

Cliffracer: Yup, I've yet to suffer my first stab hit from DoWs :D

Anyway, the court historian just came up with another gem of a map form the Imperial archives. A true late Medieval masterpiece by the famous mapmaker Hieronymus of Nicea, the map tells us a great deal about the Trebizondian world view of the time

115worldmap.jpg


The map is accompanied by the following Legend:

The Orthodox:
I.
Empire of Trebizond proper, and vassals
II. Extended Orthodox alliance
III. Russian Brothers in the Faith
The Muslims:
IV.
The Most Ruthless Infidel Empires
V. Primitive Muslim Tribes
The Catholics (mostly):
VI.
Kingdom of Hungary
VII. Confederation of Uninhabited Territories
VIII. Some Typical Catholics
IX. Lands of the Northern Beastmen
X. Several species of small furry Germans gathered together in a cave and grooving with a Pict
XI. Principalities of Assorted Italians
XII. Burgundian estates
XIII. Nation of Blue Meanies and Dependencies
XIV. Various Iberians
XV. The Remote Fiefdom of Anglosaxia
The Something Elses:
XVI.
Indian pagans
XVII. Cathay
XVIII. Oriental savages
XIX. Libyan barbarians
 
Last edited:
Wallachia and Moldova are catholic? :confused:
And who enlargened the Aegean? :rofl:
And byzant, o rome, where r u hiding? :p

You are descendants of the pontians, while you have been assimilated into latin world, yet in your heart there burns a pontic fire and in the veins the poisons of mithridates flow. :D
 
Last edited:
Northern beastmen... Cathaya?
do you play Warhammer or something. :p

northern beastmen could also sound a bit like something to do with conan? xD

Cathay is a historical name for (part of) China really. It came to Europe through Marco Polo, who travelled back home via the Silk Road, which at that time had its western terminus at... Trebizond.

Beastmen... Well, those lands are really a long way from Trebizond. We heard the stories. I should have put 'here be dragons' somewhere too.

Wallachia and Moldova are catholic? :confused:
And who enlargened the Aegean? :rofl:
And byzant, o rome, where r u hiding? :p

You are descendants of the pontians, while you have been assimilated into latin world, yet in your heart there burns a pontic fire and in the veins the poisons of mithridates flow. :D

Oh it's not Moldova you're seeing there, that's part of Poland. And Wallachia? Just ignore them, they are, eh, doomed :rolleyes: You'll see in the next update, probably tomorrow.

The latter part sounds cool and very warrior-kingly! Arrr!

Nice job!
You really should diploannex Byzantium. It would look so nice, and your empire would be connected. You'd dominate the region.

Diploannexing has become rather difficult in 3.1 :( No more diploannexing France these days. Or in fact, anything but minors.

Love the Pink Floyd reference...

I was hoping someone would say that ^_^