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First Lieutenant
Jul 29, 2006
218
0
Introduction

For 1,500 years, it is estimated that India was the largest economy in the world. At one point in the first century, its economic output is said to have been 33% of the globe's total. When it was first unified as a centralised state in the fourth century BCE by Chandragupta Maurya, it controlled an estimated one third of the world's population, had the world's largest city, and fielded an army of 600,000 men, comparible to the standing forces today of India and China. Over the next thousand years, its classic civilization spread across asia, with hundreds of kingdoms adopting Buddhist, Jain and Hindu culture and art, so that today, one can find priests learning Sanskrit in Japan, the Ramayana as Thailand's national epic, the largest Buddhist temple in Indonesia, and the largest Hindu temple in Cambodia.

Since the time of Chandragupta, few empires have managed to unify the majority of India. This AAR takes place at a time of warring states, when India's riches have attracted yet another invasion from the pourous northwest frontier, while protected to the east by the Himalayas. Muslim Sultans from beyond Gandhara have set up their throne in Delhi, Bengal and the Deccan. The mighty Rajputs fight a never-ending war against the hordes of fanatical central asian and Persian invaders. The Hindu Vijaynagara Empire stands as the last remnant of its once powerfull self, its magnificent stone capital city lost to the Deccan's Bahamani Sultanate. Although feuding between multiple kingdoms, the land is united by common legend, history and pilgrimage.

This AAR deals with the first 50 years of my game as the Vijaynagara, on normal difficulty. What would history have been like if Mallikarjuna Raya, who rose to the throne as Emperor in 1446, had not been a currupt and weak ruler, but had grasped the understanding of statesmanship needed to follow the example of Chandragupta and the heroes of the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics? What if a footnote in history turned into the next Ashoka? I hope that this AAR will inspire others to play amongst the vicious feudal atmosphere of this majestic land of jungles, philosophers and ancient temples. If you like this AAR, I also did a review of the game, based partly on my experiences as the Vijaynagara.

Ill try to expand this AAR over time, but until then, enjoy the screens at least.



The Maharaja's Dream

The objectives were:

1). Unite the Indian subcontinent.
2). Convert the people to the king's religion.
3). Establish friendly relations with all neighbours.
4). Plow funds into development.
5). Reduce my inevitable bad reputation through peace.
6). Explore overseas.
7). Colinize the islands of Indonesia.


The Kingdoms of India

In the south:

Vijaynagara - grey.
Kingdom of the Deccan - light blue.
Kingdom of Orissa - orange.
Kingdom of Mysore - yellow.
Kingdom of Tranvacore - medium green.
Kingdom of Sri Lanka - not shown.
Kingdom of the Maldives - not shown.

In the north:

Kingdom of Rajputana - dark green
Kingdom of Golconda - light grey.
Kingdom of Bihar - dark grey.
Kingdom of Gujerat - yellow.
Kingdom of Sindh - brown.
Kingdom of Nepal - medium green.
Kingdom of Assam - not shown.
Kingdom of Manipur - not shown.
Kingdom of Malwa - one province, below Rajputana.
Kingdom of Khandesh - one province, above Bahmani.
Kingdom of Bengal - blue.
Kingdom of Delhi - sickly green.




The Lotus Blossoms

First thing to do was gain enough provinces to have the resources to develop my income, and plow this back into research. To do this, I plowed all my funds into government research for an idea. Meanwhile, in anticipation of the coming invasion, I built up my army, with the hope that I could send one force after their main army and fortified provinces, and another after their unfortified provinces in the middle of India. All I needed was a cassus belli. Then my first idea came - I chose Deus Vult - I now was free to decalre war on any Muslim kingdom I chose without a stability penalty :)


Conquest of the Deccan

I gradully drove their forces back to Goa with my large army, whilst building another unit of soldiers to take their woefully undefended eastern provinces. An assult each time they retreated guarenteed that by the time they were in their final unconquered province, I could assult it with my 10k+ troops and then follow them into the province they were retreating to, to prevent its recapture. After quick negotiations, they had but one province left, and my borders had extended up to the one province state of Khandesh in the north.


Brutal Consolidation

After a short time, Khandesh and Malwa (both single provinces) made the rather unfortunate decision of allying with the Maldives (a single island province) and what remained of the Deccan sultanate (one province). By doing this, they had effectively guarenteed that in spite of my truce with the Deccan, they would join the war against me. When I decaled war upon the Muslim kingdom of Khandesh, all others followed suit. Using funds that I had built up, I hired a group of mercinaries, to take Khandesh and Malwa, who had only 1000 troops between them, and used my existing forces to defeat the Deccan, by chasing them after each battle until they had been wiped out entirely. I negotiated an annexation with them seperate of the alliance. I then took their captured fleet, and conquered the Maldives, leaving a small garrison there, as I planned to convert them. Khandesh and Malwa were then annexed.

Within 10 years, I had doubled my empire and destroyed a total of four soverign kingdoms, sweeping through India with only conquest in mind - it was time to build up my research and armed forces for the larger goal of driving Delhi and the other powers to a firey grave. As a final stroke of luck, my royal marriages paid off, with the inheretance of Tranvacore.


The Delhi Sultanate

I now bordered the vicious Delhi Sultanate, who were at the time, at war with the Kingdom of Bihar. I had the choice to either invade westward into Gujerat and Sindh, or eastward into Delhi, which would surround the Rajputs, and give me a border with the mighty Persian empire. I chose to invade Delhi (after letting them conquer most of Bihar, exhausting their forces and giving me three more provinces to target, lol), which sent me to war with both them, and their allies in Bengal. The conquest was a tough slog, but because I was fairly isolated from Bengal, their only resistance came in the form of a fleet, which I managed to crush, when my army repelled them off the coast, sending them back to their fleet, which was subsequently blockaded by my own as they moved onto their fleet, sending their small number of troops back onto land for total destruction by my 10k army.

Meanwhile, my other force had managed to conquer its way up to Ladakh and Kashmir on the Persian border, and so, sending the above mentioned force from the coastal slaughter to finish off Delhi was the next priority. They werent nearly as easy to tame as the Deccan, but eventually fell, letting me invade Bengal by land, and take all their provinces too. In the end, Bengal was reduced to one province, and Delhi, due to its size, to about six. I now controlled provinces all over India. Since the Persians had invaded Kashmir, and taken Jammu away, I conquered the single province it had left. I wondered whether it would be worth re-taking Jammu from the forces of the mighty Timurids, as it contained an Indian culture, and no Persian core....


The War to End All Wars

As it turns out, my dilemma was resolved when the Persians invaded my agressive nation. If India, China and Persia represent the old superpowers of asia, then this was a war between two giants. A pan-Indian empire (albiet with large holes), vs one of the great powers of the time. Using the vast treasuries that I had built up, I had to quickly recuit as many mercinaries as I possibly could, to take on the only power that could possibly rival my own. I couldnt even seen most of their provinces, and had no way of exploring them. Thankfully, a path to their capital was at least open. After a huge war, in which conquest and counter-conquest happened, the Timurids offered me two provinces - I only wanted one of them - Jammu, which had no Timurid core, and thus, wouldnt create diplomatic problems. I took it through a counter proposal, set about converting the population there and improving relations with the Timurids, to prevent another war.

My second national idea had occurred round about this time - I chose humanist tolerance, and coupled with choosing the noble republic government type, and religious tolerance sliders, I had virtually no chance of revolt anywhere, whilst I slowly converted to provinces I intended to keep, to Hinduism, thus getting rid of the need to have tolerance sliders to full for some religions.


Mass Consolidation

Another war with Delhi, saw me taking all their provinces save Delhi itself, and a war with Gujerat and Sindh, who were allied, saw me taking all but their two capitals, effectively surrounding the Rajputs, who took it upon themselves to annex these newly single-province nations. In South East Asia, my efforts to prevent other kingdoms annexing Manipur, which I was trying to diplo-annex, resulted in war with the Buddhist alliance of Pegu and Sri Lanka - resulting in the vassalisation of Pegu, and annexing of half of Sri Lanka. The Timurids, suddenly, through an event, gained several cores on my provinces around the former Delhi and Sindhi provinces, and war ensued as soon as the truce between us ran out, in spite of good relations. This war against a weakened Timurid empire, saw me vassalising the Timurid Empire - effectively sealing my place as the most feared nation on earth.

The years after the second Indo-Persian war were no less epic. At first, I tried to establish good relations with other Hindu kingdoms, in order to diplo-annex or inherit them, but to no avail. Since I had gained cores on most of them, I had cassus belli on some of them - who happened to be allied to others that I didnt have cassus belli on - so I soured relations with former friends, and took them down without mercy. Some nations were even unfortunate enough to be part of both alliances, resulting in their complete annexation, as they were forced to go to war stright after being defeated in the first war. Single province Manipur dissappeared beneath my warriors boots, as did Sri Lanka (left as a single province after my war with them and Pegu), Bihar (left as a single province by Delhi all those years ago), Mysore (part of both alliances) and Orissa (parth of both alliances) - Nepal, Rajputana, Gondwana and Assam were left with a single province each - the last nations in the way of my total conquest - surrounded on all sides. I was now the most powerfull nation on earth, with a yearly income of 250 ducats every year-end, compared to the 10 or so that I started with.


India United Again

Since both alliances that I had just made war upon had shared my state religion, I was forced to lose two stabilty - one for each war, giving me zero stability - so I plunged funds back into this for a while. However, as mentioned earlier, a combination of three things gave my empire unwavering solidarity - tolerance sliders were set to full on Hinduism and Buddhism, giving a tolerance bonus of +5 on every province except my single pagan one - I had adopted the 'noble republic' government type, giving tolerance of +1 tolarance - and I had adopted the humanist tolerance idea, giving +1 tolerance - this gives about 10% growth in every province.

After 50 years, the same aged Maharaja is on the throne of the empire. He has seen the downfall of 14 soverign states by his own hand. He now rules all of India, and after annexing the last single province nations, will focus on reducing the incredible reputation of his dynasty. But before this can happen, the northwest frontier lights up again in the third India vs Persia war. This is probably due to India having a core on Persia, even though I didnt desire it.

India as she looks in 1504:



Her diplomatic situation:



Her religious makeup:




The Quest for the New World

In just 50 years, a stable state has been created across India. As the research being plowed into government tech grows closer to level 9, the third idea, Quest for the New World, draws near, and will enable the Maharaja to send mighty treasure fleets to the nations of the world, and perhaps even explore the extents of the Persian Empire, as it is driven back once again. After this, the islands of Indonesia, once home to Hindu kingdoms, and even part of an Indian empire, will be the peacefull target of development, as badboy reputation is reduced, and relations with neighbours reach the +200 mark. Hopefully an alliance of some sort with Persia will prevent any further bloodshed - or perhaps they will force India to annex them? Perhaps forcing them to release their conquered nations will keep them occupied?

 
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War Without End

The Persian Empire in ancient times, had united an area stretching from ancient Greece to the northern borders of India, swallowing ancient Egypt and Babylon along the way. It had become the world's first superpower, issued the world's first tolerant human rights laws (as documented on the Cyrus cylinder), founded the ancient religions of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism - (while in India, Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism were formed, and in China, Taoism, Confucianism and Legalism were formed) and its system of administration was thought to have inspired the respective first emperors of India and China - Chandragupta Maurya in the 4 century BCE and Qin Shi Huang in the 3rd century BCE, on how to administrate their large land empires. Since the advent of Islam, it had been conquered by the Arabs, and the remaining Zoroastrians had fled to India, where they would become known as the Parsi community. The Mongol hordes then descended upon it, and eventually a Persian/Mongol dynasty founded the breakaway Timurid Empire. Had history followed its normal path, a warlord known as Babur the Brave would have emerged from this dynasty, and conquered India (something the Mongols never managed), founding his own Indian/Mongol Mughal Empire - the richest nation on earth.

As it stands now, the Vijaynagara Empire has instead formed a resurgent Hindu state across the entire subcontinent, larger even than what the Mughals would have managed. But the border between the Timurids and the Vijaynagara creates fear at the Persian court, fear of Indian claims on Persian land, that India in reality has no interest of persuing. To attempt to bring an end to this conflict once and for all, the aged Emperor of India has decided to force the Persians to free the people of Baluchistan, creating a buffer between the two states, weakening the Persians, and placing India's core on Quetta inside a state that is much less likely to attack. This war went as planned, but even this didnt manage to quench the Persian apetite for war with India - straight after the truce following this war ran out, the Persians again declared war on India, already having so little stability, that war wouldnt make a difference. This time India forced them to give up all their cores on the new nation of Baluchistan, securing it from Persian agression.

I doubt this will be the end of the agression (in that respect, it mirrors the real brutality with which middle eastern and central asian powers tried to conquer India), and yet, I do not have any interest in conquering the Persians. So, its likey that in future, I will continue to weaken them as a state, then offer the hand of friendship once again. Then again, can one really blame them for fearing a nation with such a huge amount of badboy reputation and power as mine? :)

India forces Persia to create the new nation of Baluchistan (note that the red part displayed is the Timurids and Khazaks, who are their allies, and most of their provinces are large and uppopulated, compared to urbanised Europe, India and China - also the dark blue bits represent impassible terrain rather than other powers):



The new nation of Balochistan consists of six provinces, and shrinks the size of my border with Persia to only three provinces, allowing me to concentrate my defence forces.




The Treasure Fleet

While all this havoc was taking place on the Persian border, I had finally arrived at my third national idea, by plowing virtually my entire treasuries into the development of government technology (a quick review of my neighbour's technology levels revealed Persia had apparently been doing the same, but in land tech, as a means to try and defeat me). My goal was to send conquistadors by land to explore Persia (with whom I had military access in times of peace, despite them being my arch enemy), central asia and Tibet, and update the ancient maps of the region, whilst building a mighty treasure fleet to explore Indonesia and make contact with the Ming court. I set about raising the hulls of 13 small transport ships, 9 galleys, and a single large capital ship, to comand the fleet, using all of India's many ports simultaniously, in a display of centralised industrial might.

India, being a giant spike in the heart of the India ocean between the civilizations of the west (the Arab peninsula) and the civilizations of the east (China), has been a hub of east/west trade via sea since the beggining of human history. Indian sailors would ride the monsoon winds in one direction (toward South East Asia for example, where they took art, philosophy and architecture to the Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms like Khmer and Srivijaya), before riding the winds back when they changed direction - creating a constant yearly cycle of trade.

Ancient contacts between India and China go back millennia, taking both the form of this oceanic trade, and the land trade of the silk route. Before the Chrsitian era, Buddhism reached China, and would eventually go on to become its state religion for some time. Indian astronomers served in the Chinese court, trade between the two nations flourished via the Indian ocean and the silk route, temples such as Shaolin were founded by Indian monks, Chinese monks venerated Indian saints like Bodhidharma, and Chinese pilgrims came to the Buddhist university in Nalana. In real life the Ming court sent a mighty trade fleet to India and Sri Lanka in the late 1400s, but I felt this duty rested on my shoulders for the moment :) Along the way, I hoped to explore Indonesia, establish relations with the kingdom of Bali, and perhaps colinise the islands of Andaman and Java. This fleet will hopefully bring prestige to the empire, while it seeks to peacefully develop an honourable reputation, and persue the arts and sciences. But the Emperor's main objective is to establish comprehensive ties with his Ming contemporary - including a royal marriage.

However, as the fleet was being built, and momentary peace with the Timurids was maintained, tragedy struck the Empire.


Moksha Attained

During his last days on the throne of India, during the building of the treasure fleet, the man who had destroyed countless kingdoms, united India, and pushed back the Persians countless times died. He had lived just long enough to finish his 60 years long task - the last four single province nations within India had been swallowed - the last provinces that were not Hindu, had been converted. In his single lifetime, he had accomplished the goal of consolidating India, and set about directing the fleet that would take the Empire's might, and announce it to the world. Some outsiders may say that he was the most bloody, relentless, and agressive Maharaja to ever rule India, but inside the empire, he had always ruled with a fair hand, choosing to resolve disputes through money and diplomacy rather than military force. As his body was cremated within the royal city, and his ashes began the long journey to the ganges in the north, he had attained release from the mortal cycle at last, leaving his son to inherit a time of peace, when the only warfare would be against the barbarians of the northwest, and not the people of India. Who knows - maybe this peace with Persia would even last.

The new Emperor (note how the last single province nations have been destroyed, and how every port in India has just finished building one of the ships that is to make up the treasure fleet):



The makeup of India, as Emperor Achyota Malini rises to the throne:




The Banyan Tree

As I write what might be the last update to this AAR (at least for a while), the year is now around 1518, and like the sacred banyan tree that grows on its soil, India's roots and brances are spreading out across the Indian ocean. The treasure fleet, under the command of great explorer Varupaksha Chatterji, who grew up riding the monsoon winds on catamarans to South East Asia, has sailed to the islands of Java and Kalimantan, where the Chola dynasty before them had once ruled an overseas colony. Having negotiated military access with the small Hindu kingdom of Bali, the ships took rest in the Balinese port before moving on to the friendly ports of the Hindu kingdom of Champa, in southern Vietnam. From here, the mighty fleet sailed the coasts, coming upon the ancient Chinese port of Guangzhou, from where Yi Jing and other famous monks had made pilgrimage to India via sea, to study at Nalanda university. As the great ships pull into port, the locals look on in awe at arrival of this foreign delegation, which seeks to unite the Indian and Chinese courts via royal marriage.
 
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Nice start Maharaja.

One question, how big is your yearly income now?
 
Excellent start for regional domination. After all, that is the Indian Ocean right there - time to make it a Mare Nostrum. ;)
 
Very well presented and excellent gameplay. That's a powerhouse you seem to have there. I agree - try to ally with Persia to keep out of war and see what else you can do. Good luck exploring. Really nice work here. I am enjoying it! :)
 
Wow, congrats so far :cool: . I'm glad to learn from folks like you while I raise money for my own copy of EUIII. Next stop: a united Indian Ocean?
 
Maybe - I like to stick to some historical constraints, so if I do go for an Indian ocean, my target would be Indonesia... Maybe I could extend my Deus Vult to Atjeh and Malacca :)

'Vijay' literally means 'victory' in Sanskrit, and Vijaynagara, reffering to the capital city, means 'city of victory' - not a bad name for this empire.

If/When I colinise Java, ill post it either in this thread or a new part two of this AAR. Meanwhile, im tempted to play an AAR as the Mughals, and try to replicate Genghis Khan's conquest of asia - im betting I can probably do it in under 50 years, when I dont wait around for stability and stuff.

EDIT: Ooops, just noticed I put the Y and J the wrong way round in the title - although I doubt many will notice.
 
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Oh, very good! I saw your encyclopaedic entry about historical Rajput in the EU 3 Gen Disc section. Very much looking forward to a well-informed AAR about the region!

Rensslaer
 
Great AAR so far, and I am looking forward to more.

My only suggestion is to conquer Britain for the Indian Empire, and wait 400 years for a Mr. Churchill to start preaching peaceful resistance and non-violence against the Indian Empire, where the sun never sets :D.
 
Maharaja said:
EDIT: Ooops, just noticed I put the Y and J the wrong way round in the title - although I doubt many will notice.
Fixed. :)
 
Thanks for changing the title - also part two is up, edited into post 3 :)

I havent spent as much time on this one, (why its not well written) and might not be able to continue the AAR from here due to revision and final year project coming up, but at the moment, I have pretty much explored Persia, Tibet, a few Khanates, and western China via conquistadors, and Indonesia, the Phillipines, Korea and Japan via a treasure fleet. Im mainly concentrating on peace (unlikely considering how the Timurids have been acting), but I have the oppertunity to colinize the Phillipines, Africa, Indonesia, and even Taiwan if I want. Who knows - if I royal marry China, maybe I might inherit their throne lol :)

Interesting stat:

During my conquest of the 14 or so kingdoms in India at the time, I lost only 4 stability. 2 when declaring war on the two Hindu alliances in the first post, and 2 finishing them off in the second post. This is because Deus Vult prevented me from suffering any stability penalty for war against the Muslim kingdoms, and when declaring war on the Hindu alliances, I had cassus belli due to cores.
 
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Deus Vult is a great national idea. Although I do detect a tendency that games are more aggressive in Eu3 (yet I'm not complaining). Great beginning!
 
Is there any way to transform into a state just called India?