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So now Castille has decided to flee rather than stay and fight :D Time to finish them. Al-Andalus must return to the hands of its rightful owners! ;)
 
21

Waiting at the roadside leads nowhere
1650-69

In the last update I left the stubborn Austrians simmering at 11% WS, unwilling to give up their 1% core in Messina. I can afford to wait sitting on the blockade, and I have BB to burn...

1650... 1651... 1652, Govt tech 25 and new idea, I take Battlefield Commisions for the army tradition boost... 1653... 1654, Land tech 25, I start building level 3 forts in Iberia; I also snatch a 3-star reputation advisor just before my previous one dies, so I remain stuck at 0.45 BB/year reduction, the infamy!

1655... the Austrian WE is capped at 18.68, no positive peace deal can be exacted... Ferrarese rebels pop up in Venezia (!) and Byzantine rebels appear in Corfu (why are there still Byzantine cores in 1655?!), so I let Austria lose her precious islands as my sad and only revenge...

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1657... slider move to centralised... 1658... I give up: white peace with Austria - Ferrara-on-Venice and the Most Glorious Byzantine Empire of Corfu are now independent nations, I can safely take my ships elsewhere. And I have more important things to worry about now: protestant zealots have been causing mayhem in Granada and Castille, in fact they force-convert Granada and make Gibraltar and Toledo defect to the new protestant nation :eek: It's a good job the Castillians eventually get MA through Aragon and stop the religious rebels in Madrid.

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In any case, a Protestant Granada with Castillian cores seems to me an irresistible target for Castille, I renew my warning on them and hope I can get a free war and save some BB :D Or maybe not, Castille doesn't move a finger for 2 years :( In 1660, as some of my Iberian provinces become cores and Sweden DoWs Poland (dragging Castille in on Polish side) I DoW Granada myself, seeing that waiting in the 17th century brings no reward...

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Everybody joins in on both sides, Portugal as alliance leader. Iraq is stripped of cores and conveniently vassalised. Rajputanans are also forced to renounce to the remaining cores they had on my lands. And Granada graciously gives away Gibraltar, Toledo and a couple of cores :D

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The Castillians have brought a lot more troops from the other side of the Atlantic this time, nearly 70 regiments, which they rush to besiege Bragança, Beira and Lisboa.

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As I push them out of Beira and Bragança they end up consolidating in Lisboa, where attrition makes my job easier to finish :)

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The rest of the war effort goes into intercepting small Portuguese fleets and occupying Castillian Nigeria, the Canary Islands, Cape, St Helena... anything to scrap some extra WE without having to move troops to America. Nigerian provinces turn out to be tougher than I thought, between attrition and rebels.

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In 1664 Austria DoWs, as tradition dictates, and signs white peace after just a year. No time wasting, blockading Italy is not fun any more. Aragon signs peace in 1666, I decide to take Aragon proper and Sierra Leone (which had defected back to them from Mali) and establish my first border with France. At this point war with France is very close, I may as well start getting ready. A year later the last Nigerian province falls and I reach 5% WS with Castille, time for peace :)

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That gives me a 15% peace, which is sufficient for five good provinces now they have such low value. Certainly more than enough for my BB, which reaches 19 :eek: At least there are only eight provinces left to conquer in Iberia.

With Castille out of the war, Portugal is happy to sign peace renouncing to her remaining cores in Iberia and North Africa. Unfortunately the high BB scares even my ally Astrakhan, who breaks our 200 year old alliance :eek: Nothing I can do for now. If you are wondering about my 3-dip caliph... he is alive and healthy, strong enough to embarass the court :mad: Maybe I should think about a Republican Caliphate.

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I hope Astrakhan comes back to the fold when my BB is down a bit. Sweden has annexed Tver and Novgorod, and Poland has been reduced to a wedge of land by Sweden, Hungary, Prussia and Austria.

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_________________

Syria in 1669

Provinces: 134
At peace.
Allied with TE, Algiers, Adal, Najd, the Mamluks. CB on Granada, Najd and Iraq. Guaranteeing Mali. Warning Fez.
Vassals: Najd, Oman, Algiers, Adal, the Mamluks, TE, Iraq.
Stability: +2
BB: 18.34
Monarch: Caliph al-Kamil III (7a/6m/3d)
Army: 169 (61/108/0)
Navy: 151 (92/8/5/46)
WE: 0
 
Found this recently and just caught up, brilliant stuff! (Or I thought I had, you posted while I was typing this!)

Crossing Pyrenee mountain is so close. Keep up the re-Jihad!

I prefer to think of it as a De-Reconquista, especially given the occupation of Iberia.

Your map doesn't feature the bits of Provence and Italy that the Saracens briefly took over, are you going to add them to the Caliphate?

Here's a link with some background.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islam_in_southern_Italy

Keep up the good work!
 
Didaa - or I should just accept that caliphs are not good at diplomacy :rolleyes:

PrawnStar - I am looking forward to Govt tech 30 to get Cabinet.

enkhuush - I'm getting there :D

Enewald - What?! Qinq formed by decision? What sort of insane Ming emperor would adopt it?

Capibara - Only 3 Castillian provinces left in Iberia :)

gabor - From the OE I got the provinces I wanted, and I didn't want to stack up even more BB :rolleyes:

Brandenburg III - Are you suggesting changing history? I know of a book that can do that ;)

Ahriman - Thanks, and welcome! I'm going to keep it at the Pyrenees, it feels like a more natural border that would be easier to defend. In Italy I've got enough with Sicily and Apulia.
 
Enewald - What?! Qinq formed by decision? What sort of insane Ming emperor would adopt it?
I think PDox created that decision to satisfy historians who hated never seeing Manchu annex Ming.
 
Progress! You're just about finished, it seems... what's left aside from those bits in Iberia? Just parts of North Africa and Arabia?

and the French-held Baleares :p (i remember!)

EDIT: do the pesky French occupy Navarre too? or is there sth wrong with my eyes?
if they do; let'em know they're not welcome, please!
 
The war against France for those last couple of Iberian provinces will certainly be interesting.
 
22

End of the road for Castille
1669-88

Waiting for my BB to come down a bit I notice that France is going crazy taking all her northern provinces out of the HRE. I guess they have sour relations with Austria (who have been emperors since I can remember). Checking the HRE map I also notice that my two Sicilian provinces were still part of the Empire. Maybe this is another reason Austria keeps DoWing me?

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I take Sicily out of the HRE but it doesn't make much difference to the Austrians, they DoW me within usual schedule in 1673 :rolleyes: Aragon joins them, which might give me some chance to get higher WS to make Austria relinquish her core in Messina. So I besiege Barcelona, blockade Italy and wait...

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This time the wait pays off - at 18% WS and 15 WE Austria is finally willing to make peace in 1677, not just for the core but over and above the WS, so I demand the release of Albania, Montenegro and Ragusa. A more colourful Balkan area should keep Austria and the Ottomans busy and out of my way for a while.

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Of course I immediately cancel the alliances with the three new nations, I don't want any involvement there at all. My BB is still very high, and my last reputation advisor dies without available replacement :( At least conversions in Iberia are quite successful, by 1679 the whole Caliphate is Muslim (Note how Granada remains staunchly Protestant).

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As my colonies in Dongola and Berber become cities, I start new ones in Mahe and Diego Garcia. France has also been busy on these shores, recently taking 2 provinces in the east coast of India :eek:

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At this point I decide to send France a warning. I think I'm reasonably prepared for a war with them, and the narrow corridor between Barcelona and Burgos means that even without scorching Aragon the French stacks should suffer huge attrition losses when they invade. The warning doesn't seem very effective, however, as France stays put after the last Indian war. Moreover, Austria allies Castille and then warns me in 1682, which prevents me from DoWing France for the time being. The last thing I need is a war with both Austria and France, with the Austrians pouring all their troops in Iberia through French territory :eek:

In 1683 my BB drops below 14 and Astrakhan accepts my alliance again. But my insociable caliph al-Kamil III dies the next year to be replaced by... another insociable 3-dip caliph! :mad: I'm starting to consider the possibility that PrawnStar's new AAR is vampirising my kings diplomatic skills...

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With France quiet and no prospects of lowering my BB any faster I have to get rid of Austria's warning, so I DoW Castille in 1685, bringing in Sweden and of course Austria. All my allies and vassals join in.

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The Austrians are still busy fighting the OE over Albania, so they are happy to offer white peace only 9 months into the war. The Castillian provinces in Iberia and Africa are occupied in the space of 2 years, but I hold off peace negotiations to see if Astrakhan can make any gains against Sweden. Sadly even with the help of my vassals and some of my cavalry regiments they are badly overrun by the Swedes; by February 1688 they quit with a white peace.

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Which leaves me free to sign the final peace deal with Castille: the last of their possessions in al-Andalus :D

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And as I finish the war I reach government tech 30, which gives me access to the Cabinet NI. Never again will I have to rely on mediocre monarchs or fickle advisors to burn BB off :)

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Now my options are either to keep waiting for France to DoW someone and trigger my warning (it would be ideal if they DoWed Austria or Great Britain) or to go solo and DoW France (allied to Prussia and Pommerania).

_________________

Syria in 1688

Provinces: 142
At peace.
Allied with Astrakhan, TE, Algiers, Adal, Najd, the Mamluks. CB on Granada, Najd, Yemen and Iraq. Guaranteeing Mali and Astrakhan. Warning Fez, France and Sokoto.
Vassals: Najd, Oman, Algiers, Adal, the Mamluks, TE, Iraq.
Stability: +3
BB: 16.59
Monarch: Caliph Mujir ud-Din II (6a/5m/3d)
Army: 182 (62/120/0)
Navy: 155 (93/8/5/49)
WE: 0
 
Vladislav - A decision for an event like that is bit of a quick fix.

Judas Maccabeus - Outside Iberia there is only Fez and diplo-annexing Cairo, Iraq and Samarkand.

Duke of Wellington - True, but it makes things slower :(

Didaa - Diplomacy is still necessary, mainly to diplo-annex.

gabor - No, I don't forget the Baleares and of course Navarra! ;)

Capibara - I'm sure it'll be.

Sweboy - 5 provinces in Iberia, Morocco and 3-4 vassals to diplo-annex :)
 
You should mod in so that your ruler is called Caliph!
 
I'm starting to consider the possibility that PrawnStar's new AAR is vampirising my kings diplomatic skills...
Entirely possible, sits back in chair and strokes cat in evil mastermind mode. Be aware that me and the cat might be in a 'Jennifer Morgue' Scenario...

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My new kitten.

EDIT: Oops my next update will annoy you even more :p
 
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