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Amric

Hurricane Sergeant of Arms
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May 4, 2003
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Now that I have a stronger graphics card....and that is a long story in and of itself.....I have decided to write about my return to try and turn Anhalt into Germany. I played some last night and since I was rather irritated at the time there was a lot of fighting, killing and destruction. Also, since I am going to be quitting the smoking habit, well that isn't helping my mood any either....So there were clouds of smoke circling my head and a large glass of Bacardi 151 nearby as my armies marched hither and thither.

I will be writing more about this over time. I learned a few things since the last time I played EUIII, and hopefully those lessons will stick with me. We'll have to wait and see how it goes. Perhaps you will enjoy this little tale, perhaps you will become bored<yeah, right, who am I kidding?>:)

All in all, my first foray back has been rather successful. I'll write about it a bit later, though. I have to do other things today. But it will be forthcoming and things will be.....bloody.
 
Good luck
May the force of the graphic card be with you :cool:
 
First off, I hadn’t intended to write an EU3 AAR this soon after my last two forays had gone so badly with a video card that just wasn’t quite strong enough to do the job. However, after an afternoon of being out with the family<wife, daughter, and two boys> I was in a rather foul mood. My wife, she who does as she pleases, had promised the tykes some toys. The boys, who should be named the terrible tornadoes, were NOT behaving worth a damn.

So much so that I was about ready to explode. Instead, I stopped at my local store and bought a GeForce 8400 graphics card. I figured if the little twits were going to get toys regardless of their behavior<I wouldn’t have given them diddly squat>, I was going to get a new card to sooth my anger. Well off to dinner we go and they were STILL bad. I was seething. To the point of wanting to wreak mayhem in epic proportions.

Finally home, I installed my new card. It worked just fine. I decided to kill thousands of troops in EU3. No AAR intended. But in my thinking of which nation to play I decided to revisit Anhalt. The scene of my worst horror in my gaming career. A game that started with such promise that turned into a horrible nightmare that sent me into a tailspin of despair and terrible defeat and humiliation. Am I am masochist? Or was I burning for vengeance? Perhaps a bit of both.

Find me a gamer who won’t revisit the scene of his worst defeat and I will show you a coward. I am not such a person. I will revisit it and I will triumph. Or go down in flames. Just like before. But I have high hopes. My new card has the game loading in seconds, not minutes. I remember what I had done before and I decided to at least START somewhat like I had before.

So I ally with Saxony. I click my slider toward quality. I recruit men, hire a company of mercs. And I choose my target. Any guesses as to who is my first victim? Hannover, obviously. It’s very early, they only have one thousand men. This time I get a general. Sure, he isn’t worth much, but he’s better than nothing at all. I declare war on my new target. Saxony jumps in. Hannover has an ally. Hesse. Big flipping deal. I’m not afraid of them. I will let Saxony smack them down for me. I want Hannover’s king on a stake outside my castle.

Head on a plate. Or a stick. Whatever. I invade and quickly overcome the defenders. It wasn’t even close, to be honest. They retreat. Toward Anhalt. Am I scared? Nope, not me. My newly recruited Latin Cavalry had finished building just before I invaded. So they were trained and ready to go when Hannover’s pitiful remnants crossed the river. My cavalry stomped them in the muddy banks of the river. Those that survived….well they trudged back across the river only to be hammered by my mercenary cavalry. If it had been hardened ground they would have been a thin red paste.

I annex Hannover after a siege that lasts for 271 days. Hesse is still in the war. Saxony has performed poorly. In fact, Hesse in besieging Erfurt. No Saxons anywhere. Are they cowering in their ramshackle castles? Damned if I know. So I march into Hesse and besiege it. The Hessians? They sit on their arses around Erfurt and do nothing. Hesse falls and I march into Nassau. The Hessians? They are fighting! Saxons! Where did they come from? Damned if I know, but the Hessians and Saxons are duking it out. I think with bent sticks and cracked stones.

Why do I think such? Because the battle seems to last for over a year. Enough time to have Nassau capitulate. I demand it for peace. Hesse agrees. I have gained two new provinces for the grand total of about 1200 men lost. Pretty cheap, I think. I start trying to put some merchants in Vlandeern and Ile de France. Why? Because I am greedy and need more money. I can only tax my peasants so much, after all. I’m not a complete monster. I think.

So now what? I wait a few years and start looking around. I check on who is Emperor. It’s me. How come I don’t seem to get the message when I am elected Emperor? It’s quite annoying not to know this immediately. I suppose the massive jump in my manpower pool should have been a clue, but I wasn’t paying that close to it. Why? Because I hadn’t spilled enough blood yet. I was still annoyed. The kids were FINALLY in bed, the wife had staggered up as well. It was quiet and I was smoking furiously as I was deep in though. The game days spun along rapidly as I thought.

What to do next? I pour myself a drink and swallow deeply. I want to be Germany. Last time I made the mistake of getting overly involved with Burgundy and France. Which have NOTHING to do with Germany. So I now had Hannover and Nassau. Only Hannover was necessary to the formation of Germany. I also need Luneburg, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Altmark, Dresden, Leipzig, Erfurt, and Franken. Well crap! Three of those are owned by Saxony. Well that could be a problem. But one I could solve later. What a second, they are in a war against Bavaria. I’m not involved. Ah, they are also allied with Austria. Well they get Franken in that war. This is not going well. Okay, who do I kill?

Luneberg! Yes, it seems like a carbon copy on my first game, doesn’t it? Just wait, it gets better. This time they are allied to Mantua and Lithuania. Okay, I’m too far away from them to have any real danger from them. I declared war and invaded. I had recruited a few more troops. I swarmed over the border and slapped down their pitiful defenses. It isn’t long before I annex them. Excellent!<Mr. Burns’ voice, and appropriate hand rubbing>

Lithuania attacks Anhalt. Where the hell did they come from? They marched through Saxony and the bloody dolts didn’t stop them? Why do I have incompetent allies? Oh, yes, because I was the one who chose them. Of course. I march over there and kick them out. Mantua demands that I release Luneberg and hand over 25 ducats. Yeah, right, that’s gonna happen.

Well Lithuania retreats and runs into…Saxons! Which proceed to chase them back to the Bohemian border. Well I suppose better late than never. I start getting a lot of alliance and royal marriage offers. I answer most of them with decline. But a few I say yes to…marriage offers, that is….The sneaky Mantuans send another demand for me to release Luneberg. Well in my stupidity I click accept. War’s over. I lose.

I grind my teeth in fury. The cat, which was passing by behind me races away at my hiss of pure undiluted rage. The hairs on her tail have poofed it out to twice its normal size. If I hadn’t been so pissed it might have been funny. But I was, and so it wasn’t. I drink more and puff even more furiously on my cigarette. Now I have to wait for five bloody years for the truce to expire before I can go back after Luneberg. If I had a navy I would be plotting to take Mantua down. Or I could get military access all the way there and kill them. I start seriously considering it until I remember that Mantua has NOTHING to do with Germany.

Some day they will pay. But that day is not today. I see the level of the cigarette butts in my ashtray pile up as I wait for the five long years to pass. Could I have done something else? Of course. But I decided to wait. I could let my BB settle a tad. It wasn’t all that high, but what the hell….Oh, I took as my first national idea one of land for national conscripts. I also managed to get a few diplomatic advisors. Three of them, actually. Who together gave me a -.70 to my reputation. You have GOT to love that!

So now it is time. More troops and I am nearly foaming at the mouth. Luneberg no longer has Lithuania as an ally. They have Mantua….and Brandenburg. Okay. No problem. I have two armies, after all. I declare war and send one into Luneberg and one into Altmark. Saxony sends some men into Brandenburg. Life is good. It takes little time and I have annexed Luneberg once more!

Brandenburg loses to Saxony. I demand Altmark and they fall all over themselves to grant it. Life is wonderful. I heave a sigh of contentment. Then Mantua AGAIN demands I release Luneberg and pay it money. I laugh and thumb my nose at them. Yes, I know, thumbing one’s nose at a computer screen is ludicrous. I know it, you know it. I do it anyway. My mood is slightly improved.

Another round of alliance proposals and marriage offers come in. I believe I am paying attention. The game speed is at the highest level. So guess what happens? I AGAIN click accept to Mantua’s offer! I release Luneberg and pay them money! I restrain a scream of rage so pure it would have brought down the entire house. Instead I spend fifteen minutes banging my head against my desk. Hoping that I was only dreaming and that it hadn’t actually happened to me. AGAIN!

If I had myself in front of myself as the king and was told that I had just GIVEN AWAY MY BLOODY TERRITORY I HAD JUST FOUGHT TO REGAIN….I would have strangled myself with my own bare hands. As it is, I struggle manfully to regain my composure. At least I still have Altmark and that is on my list of provinces that I must have. Yet I have fought TWO freaking wars to take one province and in the end didn’t keep what I had gained. Due to my own towering stupidity!

I get another ashtray. My first one is full. I wait again. Brandenburg is absorbed by Pommerania. Yippee. Why not? Let’s make my life more difficult. Saxony loses Franken back to Bavaria in another war that Austria apparently started. Who cares? I don’t. I have enough problems. I envision ripping the intestines of Mantua’s ruler and feeding them to pigs. But again, they aren’t integral to becoming Germany. One thing at a time….
 
He's BACK! Subscribed, of course. I wish you no luck, since you should make your own, but I do hope you won't have any PC problems this time :)
 
Amric said:
I AGAIN click accept to Mantua’s offer! I release Luneberg and pay them money! I restrain a scream of rage so pure it would have brought down the entire house.
Amric, there are few moments in my reading of AARs that have brought me to out-loud laughter, but this was one of them!

Please forgive me for it being at your expense! ;)

This is exactly why I don't play at speed... Which is exactly why my games and AARs take years... But that's beside the point.

I'll look forward to following this.

Rensslaer
 
uphillarnie - Thank you. I hope that it will be entertaining as well.

comagoosie - So what do you think so far?

nalivayko - Hey! My EU2 story is still ongoing! :) The computer is new, the card is new, the C drive is the oldest thing on it now....Should be okay, I hope....

Cordoban Inca - In my defense, before the new card when I played the days crawled by...I had plenty of time to do things...With the new card it took me some time to realize that I was NOT going to be able to do it so easily.

Rensslaer - You laugh at my pain?:) well, why not? If it hadn't happened to me I would have laughed as well. I've learned to slow things down a bit during a war and pausing when there are multiple pop ups to make sure I don't do that again. I hope!

all- I had played for about six hours for that first session. I haven't even gotten to the end of it yet in my description. So there is more mayhem and back stabbing to come!
 
Back with a vengeance, it seems. A warmonger when angry obviously, which means those two mistaken peace deals cannot bode well for the rest of Europe. ;)

Excellent gaming description as always, Amric. Hilarious.
 
DUDE!!!

I can't believe you!!! Why?!? I would of yelled my lungs out, wakening the entire neighborhood. You would of yet you didn't want to wake your naughty boys, did you?
 
The battle for Luneberg.

Amric: Yes after more than half a year of fighting Luneberg is finally mine!

Mantua: No it's not.

Amric: Just wait till this annoying truce runs out.

Mantua: Bring it.

Amric: There. I told you so. To the victor go the spoils: Luneberg is mine once more.

Mantua: I thought I said no.

The following reaction has been deemed inappropriate and has been modified for your reading pleasure
Amric: I am not pleased.

Will be continued.​

Amric said:
So there is more mayhem and back stabbing to come!
Even more mayhem than the wars for Luneberg, this should be good :D
 
coz1 - Thank you, sir. Yes, those two blown peace deals really irked me. So much so.....well, um, perhaps I should write about it, eh?

comagoosie - You have never been married, eh? There is nothing worse than waking one's wife from a sound sleep in such a way. There is the stomping down the stairs like a herd of angry elephants....and smoke coming from the nostrils is like that of a fire breathing dragon....the eyes....red rimmed like a enraged bull. The voice! oh, lord the voice! Like the the piercing shriek of banshees. No, sir. You do NOT want to experience this. Neither do I. It's.....unpleasant.

Slinky - Now that was funny! Yes, more mayhem. Backstabbing. You'll see. The Luneberg fiascoes....well it made me do a very nasty thing....I'm sure my target was horrified. I know the end result pleased me...but that is for a later installment...
 
Heh, seems like the Anhaltian Calamities have returned... :cool:

Still misspelling Vlaanderen but also misclicking messages... Great fun indeed... :D :p
 
Hilarious AAR so far, although at your own expense. Very fluent writing style, love it! Sad this forum doesn't have a :hail: smiley, I would've used it.

Another AAR I'll have to follow.
 
Murmurandus - I figured if I did you would appear. And so you have! Good to see you again and glad to know you are enjoying it so far!

Qorten - Glad to hear it. You'll likely enjoy this next segment. Although not as funny, as there were no horrors involved for me this time....

Chief Ragusa - Yes, indeedy. It's always fun to take out my frustrations on hapless AI when in a bad mood.
 
All right, where was I? Oh, yes….cursing my own stupidity. Well, at least my BB is under 20. Since I have to wait I get to replace one of my advisors with one just like him. So I still have a massive amount of reputation getting whacked. Very nice, actually. I push sliders to get my stability back up. It doesn’t take long. I’m not very big yet, so within a few years I’m back up into positive numbers. Oddly enough, no revolts. Not that I am complaining, mind you. It’s just a nice thing to have considering the luck I’ve had with Luneberg.

So who to target? Oh, I know! Magdeburg! Why? Because it is a three for one deal. Hesse and Brandenburg are allied to it. Hesse has squat for troops. Brandenburg has Magdeburg as a vassal. I want them broken free and Brandenburg humbled. I’ve got nothing better to do, after all. I recruit more men. I’ll need them when I split my time between Hesse and Magdeburg. I’ll trust in Saxony to keep Brandenburg busy. Did I just say that? Yes, I did.

So I declare war on Brandenburg. It’s just easier. I invade Hesse with three thousand men. I go into Ruppin<Magdeburg> with five thousand. Believe it or not, the Saxons go into Brandenburg itself with six thousand troops. I’m not complaining, mind you. Just a bit surprised that they did something so well. Hesse lays down, rolls over and exposes her belly for a good scratching…Just like a Golden Retriever. Magdeburg, on the other hand, yaps like an annoyingly small dog that doesn’t know it’s the smallest thing in the group. Like one of the former dogs my wife owned….A cockapoo. Small, yappy. Annoying and completely useless. Overly furry and needing a close shave, but about as threatening as a wet noodle.

The Saxons defeat the troops opposing them. They settle in for a siege. They are aping what I have done in Hesse and Magdeburg. Then the Brandeburgers come back. And smack them around like a bully pummeling a poor snot nosed kid in the schoolyard. The Saxons retreat. Further into Brandenburg territory. Where they settle into another siege. Brandenburg squats down in their capital and does……nothing. My mood improves slightly when I get to annex Hesse. Cologne warns me not to go to war against any of her neighbors. I ignore them. They have bigger problems. Burgundy has expanded into Osnabruck. And Friesland. Cologne should be more worried about the evil purple blob.

Saxony won their siege as well and marched back into Brandenburg. And lost. I won my siege and marched into Brandenburg at the tail end of Saxony losing. I beat up the Brandenburgers and sent them packing to besiege their conquered province. Saxony mustered up some more men and went back in. They won, causing the poor clods of Brandenburg to ping pong back and forth between us. Eventually they ran out of men. I finally get close to winning my siege. I demand Brandenburg release Magdeburg from her vassalage.

She agrees hastily. I take a drink and crush out another cigarette. Life is getting better. I can now go after Luneberg again. But before I do…..France asks for an alliance. I agree. Now I overrun Luneberg and in 120 days they are annexed. Mantua demands I release them. I send their diplomat back in a dirty bag. I ignore further demands. Until they ask for white peace. France has sent a few ships and some men overland to besiege their capital. I smile. It’s not a nice smile. It is cruel and predatory. I wait for France to crush them utterly.

They beg for a white peace. Instead I demand cash. They agree. They are vanquished. Sure, I didn’t do it personally, but it is still quite satisfying. I finally have Luneberg. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Brandenburg, during my time of conquest of Luneberg, has been absorbed by…..Pommerania. Utterly and completely. I am quite surprised. This will make things more difficult. But I still have to get Mecklenburg before I worry about Brandenburg and the other provinces I need. I declare war on Mecklemburg. Who is allied to Pommerania. Nice. Mecklenburg has spent the last ten years duking it out with Bremen. I attack and shred their tiny 2k army.

Yes! Bonus! Magdeburg had allied themselves to Mecklenburg as well! This is gonna be sweet! Saxony invades Brandenburg. They have 10k troops in three armies. They are doing well enough to keep Pommerania busy. I send another army into Magdeburg. They have no army. No worries. I settle in for the siege. I hire a few mercs. I want them to keep the rest of Mecklemburgs tiny army trapped in their other province. For now. Saxony marches further into Pommeranian territory. Fair enough. Magdeburg is soon part of my territory. I go into Brandenburg to settle into a new siege.

Mecklenburg falls. I invade the next Mecklenburg territory. I crush their tiny army and besiege it. Pommerania is reeling from Saxon incursions. I am pleased with their abilities. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. They did well early on in my last game as Anhalt. It shouldn’t be too bad for me with them this early either.

Brandenburg falls. I march further into Pommerania. It takes a couple of years but Pommerania is prostrate and Mecklenburg is begging for mercy. I demand Mecklenburg province and Brandenburg province. I get them both! Now all that is left is getting the three Saxon provinces and the one Bavarian province.

I get a pop up saying I am now the Papal Controller. Hm….I’m also still HRE. My BB is in the late 20’s….Not bad….I get another event with a philosopher. It gives me a pretty heady charge of my BB getting lowered. I’ll take it….I’d like my BB to get lower though. So I’ll wait and consolidate my conquests. I get a revolt in Magdeburg<Ruppin> I crush it utterly and without remorse. Sure, I don’t NEED that province to become Germany. I don’t need Nassau either. But I have a weakness. Once I take a province I just can’t bring myself to let it go.

It’s the littlest piglet syndrome. I don’t share well and I don’t give back what I consider to be mine. It’s MINE! I will not give it up. Nope, can’t make me! Not you, Pommerania. Not you, Mecklenburg. Not you, Cologne! Who, BTW, has done NOTHING during my warmongering. Of course, having France on my side might also give them pause. I’d like to think they are terrified of me. The reality? They are more likely petrified of France. Oh well, I can’t be utterly frightening, yet.

Soon enough. I wait a few years and get an offer of alliance from Bohemia. I accept. I will need a closer ally than France when the time is right. Saxony keeps asking for military access. I keep declining. They also keep asking for a royal marriage. I also say nein to that as well. I bet you can see where this is going, eh? If you can’t, you are paying attention! 

I wait some more. With my rep advisors it isn’t long before I get below ten in BB. I dissolve my alliance with Saxony. I declare war. Saxony is allied with Austria as well. I am not scared of them. Why? Because they are already at war with the Turk. Plus I have Bohemia and France on my side. I feel very confident. There is not a single Saxon within their territory under arms.

Did I not mention betrayal? I’m sure I did somewhere in my earlier installment. I know I did. Saxony is lying before me like a ripe apple ready to be plucked. I invade with everything I’ve got. All fifteen thousand men in three armies. I leave nothing behind. Not a single trooper anywhere. I go hog wild in Saxony. Sieges are laid. Cities are put to the torch. No, not really. But let’s pretend, shall we?

Saxon women swoon before the might of their soon to be Anhalt overlords. Again, let’s imagine, yes? Austria has men on my border down in Nassau. I watch as they march away. Whither? Who cares! As one siege winds up I move to a new unspoiled Saxon territory. And I do it again! I’m merciless. Within two years I have subjugated Saxony. I demand everything but their capital. They accept. I now only have ONE more province to go to complete my quest.

Or so I thought.
 
Ah, cliffhanger :D Nice story, you warmonger, you. Now, where is a screenshot? I want to have this map in front of my eyes now, you pack too much info to do without the visual aids.
 
(random thoughts while reading)
nice analogies and similies...
...I like ping pong...
...Pommerania absorbs Brandenburg :eek: ...
...This guy's has drastically changed...
...this idiot is going to declare war on his faithful ally :eek: ...
...HE Does declare war :eek: ...
...such a warmonger, his economy is shot forever...
(end random thoughts)
sorry if any is offensive, it is random thoughts ;)
 
Back with vengeance and a cliffhanger... ;)