This is where it ends

[filcat]

When the shining of the bright closes the eye, and the dark glimmers with the sparkling hope beyond the sky, the sorrowing fear begins. The words had to be created, the work had to be forged, the dreams had to be brought into the day of the real. Yet nothing has been done, the story sits over there; but this does not involve the banal explanations of the obstruction, the obstacles of the mind for further conception, the pervasive lethargy of the procrastination.

No, it does not. Yet, it is unfinished, and the need to write is there, awaiting. The force that halts the fingers to dance, the words to conjure, the story to develop; it simply comes from the pain. The pain is there, and all diversion is born out of it.

The chances for escaping from the existence of the paralysing distress do not look promising, it seems this desolation will not go away soon. There has to be another way to deal with it. It will be found, devised, shaped, as the vectors of the space are discovered, and the never-vector, but scalar time, shall hurl itself into its only direction.

In the meantime, then, what?

No, it has to be said, no to that program, no to that software, no to that game! Never again, it was screamed from the depths of the hatred, to the horizons of the events, and the light could not even escape. No, as it was a bleak piece of black hole, exhausted its hydrogen, completely devoid of its premise, now stands still in the middle of the non-existence, devouring all on its way, while still spurting even more additions to its code.

...

Go online. Install. It was significantly easier before, as one had to go and buy. Say hello to the ones that pass-by. A pretty girl would smile. A nasty salesman would greet. Choose the box, according to its art, not that the details of the game would be known. A magazine had to be purchased, opened, read, for the game to learn about. No time for that. They were fun to read nevertheless. No information prior to purchase, now choose the box. Buy. Head home. Say hello to another person. Install. It was then, now it is different. Go online, and this is uncomfortable. What if the net is out of connection, what if there is no transmission, what if there is no electrification. Forced attempt on rhymes, making the line incomprehensible. The phonology comes always first in the mind, but one day that will fail. Forget the rhythmic word-mancer spells, another reason glows with the obvious sparkles. You do not want to go online.

Installation complete. Go offline. Play. Sigh with a deep breath, as there are launchers, with delirious offerings and commercials and advertisements. Will they ever understand that their collective onslaught of maniacal efforts to sell will never work? No, they will not, because being a sample of one, and the rest of the set will provide the net earnings, further proving the efficiency of their wrathful attempts in their mind.

Again, Play. This time the echo is forwarded, and the program finally starts. The opening art comes forward, filling the screen. Yes, the memories come alive, and they are greeting the already tired eyes with the full screen beauty they hide. They scream the hopes of a time from forever ago, and readily prompts the disappointment after those years had passed. Yes, the program starts, the map is seen, and it is not the game you want to play. You already jumped from the ship into the icing waters of reality, when the emperor was born; you never had the endurance, calmness, nor the fortitude to even check the monster, named leviathan. Its death was already pronounced in the mind, with thunderous screams, before that. Yet, here it is, with all the additions since the beginning, until the notorious emperor.

You do not want to play it. Yet, hit single player. Always. Never multiplay, never use mods. And never ironman. Never. It may be the times of fall, the life may not forward itself as it is wished for, the future may seem bleak, but under no circumstances there will be a deficit of self-respect, to make the choice of ironman run. There is no need. The times infinite years ago, the sufferings are remembered, and now they call it the ironman mode. Smile, grin, laugh, and bitter memories go away, as there was not a save feature for many of the games back then. Few would come with a password to proceed where the player leaves it, and most would not have even such. Crawled through those torturing moments, yet the prince running from a platform to another in the middle of a fantasy-induced-persia was legendary. But, never again. Those are left in the past. Let them live in the graveyard of nostalgia. It is now, and there is no force in universe to convince you for an ironman run.

Which tag, now is the question. The first love. No, it may end even before the play is hit. The timurids, you remember their misery before the cradle of civilization, and then they fell from the grace even deeper. That is a binary tag, either disintegrate completely, otherwise run over entirely. The call of destiny. No, there is no time, no will, and certainly no patience for a venice forever. The empire of horror. No, as the last memory in the mind is prompted, and it was another inheritance madness of the burgundy. No desire for austria run, nor another raging-meltdown. The lucky strike. Then the colonisation aspect is remembered, no. If there is no patience for venice, then there is absolute extreme of the same feeling for the iberians. The fight for hundred years. A sudden grin, as if that would be true. It lasts about ten years in the game, if the player wants it as such. Otherwise, it is a quick couple-of-years-war. No to england, no to france tags. Then the oranges? Good to say, it is time to eat some fruit. And no, the sentiment for colonisation is already declared, so no to holland. The standard destroyer tags of the sub-continent? No, no aspirations for an india-madness. The symphony of doom? Dealing with pomeranians is not the problem; there is no mood for brandenburg, and the imperial business.

It has been already more than an hour, and the look of map is ever more beautiful. The game has not even started; not even a tag has been chosen, let alone decided. Then once again, it becomes clear, the reason of the love for the game, now it is only a faint memory. But it was there. The reason was, as always, the map. Maps, outlines, sketches, atlas, globe, projection; borders, rivers, mountains, plains, prairie, grassland, savannah, steppes, wetland, marsh, tundra.

You do love maps.

Scroll the globe. No. No. Not that. Not this. Definitely not that one. Never this. The hour, the moment, the time is running out. Eyes are closed, eyes are reopened. Probably the tags already considered, they will be played. Again. Sighing, with no patience available, there is only one tag left, you realise.

There is no turning back, as the play is hit.

---

-BİR-​

Hello ottos.

It has been a very long time.

No, do not smile, still hating the game. Have no patience, only to blow off some stress. That is why you exist in the game in anyway, ottos. To not have a need to worry about the run.

Before taking any actions: Turn off those ugly music from sabaton. Still cannot believe self how they were purchased in any case. Yes, thank you.

Eh. Serenity. Now your own music has already started in the mind. Shuffle. It will get there. It does mix up with the game's default soundtrack. Lower the sound-level of the game. Hyper-increase the sound-level of the mind.

Make corrections on the map options. Disable some of the messages, especially the prompt for gaining a casus belli. Otherwise you will be bombarded with hundreds of them, whenever a tag starts to pirate the player, and then gives up. Then pirates again. Yes, that one is still there.

Setup complete. Check the estates. Eyes are closed, then reopened. Give privileges. It is the ottos. No need to be shy. Do not forget the Supremacy Over The Kingdom. Seize the land, before the initial unpause.

Yeah, the kingdom. You remember now, as the emperor came, the ottos became a kingdom, instead of sultanate. With king mehmed.

No. No need to choose rivals already. Rivals. The game before the rivalry mechanic was... interesting. Now, it is... interesting. Anyway. It is the ottos. No need to trigger the hatred of all tags before the unpause. There is no need for a rival for now. Except mamluks. Hello ma'am. Embargo.

Diplomacy. Hah. It is the ottos. Ottos do not need alliances. Protecting ragusa. Yeah, right. Goodbye, ragusa. Check anatolia-tags. Sons of ramazan, sons of dulkadir, gather around. How about royal marriages? Cool. And the third diplomat goes to... byza- roman empire, or what is left from her. Send warning first, then start to work. Work on that claim. As if there is a need for it, but it is redundant to start a world-war-of-punishment by no-cb at this point. The game starts right after one of them, you do know that. Let there be claims, and no headaches.

Check advisors. Branimir Sorkochovich, statesman, providing +1 diplo-rep. Thank you, Branimir. The others, do not care; there is no commandant, and there is no artist. The rest do not matter at this point. In the pool of available advisors, there are ones that provide manpower, additional force limit, and missionary strength. You take a brief pause for a long laughter. Then come back, and order three more galleys, to have ten in total. After that, you continue to laugh a bit longer. Force limit. For ottos. For faqs sake.

Well, all is set. As the unpause command is ordered, the music is already chosen in the mind. You grin. The ottos smile back at you. Your grin falls. Do not smile, ottos, this is not a return. The ottos become sad.

Spoiler: Well, the remix starts first.

[*]​

The time runs, as the unpause releases the force of the nature. The days, the weeks, the months pass, and alliances are made with the sons of ramazan and dulkadir. And this is the only period you keep your alliances, you know it, the code knows it, even the music knows it. The reason is the mission tree of the ottos, which is a mix of generic and specialised legs. And there it is, when the tag has two alliances with +150 opinion, another +1 diplo-rep.

You send the diplomats to the beyliks, once again, but with a proposition: Be a vassal, or face the consequences. The sons of ramazan are ready since yesterday, but for the ones of dulkadir, they need extra 4k troops of you to train for persuasion.

"Greetings from Edirne, King Mehmed salutes you."
"King?"
"Long story. Just assume it is still sultan. By the way, nice lands you got here. How about you and we, let's make this kingo-vassalo, yeah?"
"Da faq. That word-bastardisation-play, that did not work mate. Also, the answer is no."
"...We have 34k troops."
"..."
"Yeah."
"Where do I sign, my liege?"

Then, send the diplomat to... hisn kayfa. This turbo-chad-opm is the best vassal you can get. The downside is, there are lots of sheeps around (so smooth filcat, so smooth). Yes, aq qoyunlu, your time will come. For the time being, do not attack, on, over, around, anywhere near hisn kayfa. And trebizond. No, thank you for the tea. It is 1444 by the way, so the tea is not there yet. Get your anachronism elsewhere.

Yes, vassalise hisn kayfa, then ally trebizond and theodoro. Meanwhile, you already have two vassals, now three. This means another privilege, which broke the game even further (as if it can be broken any more. Err... wait- then came leviathan. Yeah. It can be, apparently.): Strong Duchies. Two more relations, minus ten (-10%) liberty desire. Hah.

What is there to do any more? Is the claim for the city ready? Yes. Vassals are ready. 12k more troops, of which 8k are janissary regiments. Yes, they do cost military points. No, no need to panic, it is the ottos. Force limit reached. Anatolia mission, check. Nice perma-claims. Force limit generic mission, check. Cool, 5% morale. Roman empire made alliance with... serbia. Check. Now rivals can be chosen. Maybe. Perhaps a waltz in hungarian plains, then a rococo in venetian islands.

That is it. Why, you start to ask now. It was only to deal with some stress, you already know it. The music intensifies. Then the original is searched in the mind. Go through the archives. Found it. All right then.

Spoiler: ...So it begins.

[**]​

[*] Remix of God's Gonna Cut You Down, original by Johnny Cash, from the soundtrack for the trailer of Battlefield 1, DICE (2016)
[**] God's Gonna Cut You Down, single by Johnny Cash (2003); video released posthumously (2006); originally folk song. Appropriated lyrics on the images.

Edit 27.05.2023: Corrected stylistic, formatting, semantic, typographical, grammatical mistakes. Corrected the links. Changes on the threadmark, after restructuring the story. Correction on missing words.

 

[Nikolai]

Original to the eleven, as usual.

 

[filcat]

Why is there the urge to push that icon, twice, rapidly, without thinking for a second?

The map is only one reason, even though it is the greatest one. But this does not satisfactorily answer the delirious nature of this lunacy. Being under stress can be understood to a certain extent. For a while, it is possible to lose the self within the shining, colourful, adventurous bits of the graphics. The thrill of the action can serve as a proper reason as well.

None of it explains the actual urge. The pain of the stress is there, the sweet nectarine of the map is there, the sound of the mouse-clicks is there. Is it, nostalgia?

No, it cannot be. Really? How it can be possible, as it does not fulfil the conditions. It has not been that much of time. Herzog zwei satisfies that condition, but not this one. Then, is it the nostalgia of a past never happened? No, these were the moments for a game that could reach a potential in the mind. The hope for a code. The aspiration for a program. The invaluable dreams of a decision matrix that can match the skills of the human player.

Yes, that was it. That is why starcraft and such would never earn the respect of the mind, as it became, right from its beginning, a game of physical coordination, rather than a strategy. It is needless to add that it could never be a simulation of any type. The civ dynasty was dead, buried, and disintegrated into its atoms, to mix with the molecules of other beings under the ground. Will it ever be again? No, with this type of player base, and its design choices for its development, it will never be. Never was a strategy, never will be a simulation. Total wars? Well, that one requires a bit more scrutinising to decide upon. It does have necessary mechanics to become a simulation, rather than an ordinary game of strategy. Yet, its course of design made a sharp turn, went head-on into the full absurdity of fantasy lands. Hammer of the war, out of all options. No, it can never survive from its deep abyss, as its masters tasted the ecstasy of gold, and they seem to go into even deeper in that infinite hole of nullity.

But this one? It had given all the hope for the player that it could be a great simulation. Hundreds of tags, a bit strenuous necessity on the physical mouse-keyboard-eye coordination, yet powerful dynamics between the code and the player for decision-making, as well as strong simulation elements. Yet, the simulation side was always outshined by her cousin, crusader kings, and she would always shy behind the shadow of her. The ultimate simulation is the ck, and this one is the close-contender, the sweetheart, the darling.

Well, it was. It was, as with each iteration, it slid into the mudlands of the arcade, and even lost its claim for being a strategy. When the fourth had arrived, the frowning was already retained permanently. Nevertheless, a chance it deserved, and it was given. Then came the additions on the program.

It was broken already, as it is futile to re-open the case of the bugs. But with the expansions... Each of them supposedly introduced a much needed remedy, while in fact each took away all of its potential forever, dooming the code into the cage of an arcade. Yes, it has become an arcade, with very limited elements of strategy. It can never be considered as a simulation, not any more, and the current conditions show that it will never be.

That is it. The nostalgia for a long lost love. A memory of the past that never occurred. The hope for a future that will never happen. That is why, you hit the mouse button, while the cursor is on the icon. Twice, rapidly.

---

CHAPTER I​

Hello again, ottos. Drop that smile. This is not a return, said this before.

The specifics. Otherwise the vague words will overwhelm the reality.

The reason for vassals is a simple mathematical equation. It does require some equations to further support the claim, yet those will be avoided. In the words replacing the numbers, the player cannot handle every move of the code, as the presence of the mind overcomes the maximum skills one may possess. It can only focus on a single subject at hand. It may deal with multiple points, yet the screen-visor can only look at a certain portion of the map, and the simultaneous actions will lower the performance of the brain when compared to undertaking a single action. Even if the player has a brain-organ-neuron-cells-physical-training above the average, the potential will be limited by the screen focus. The mathematics come at this point: The code can proceed with the calculation of input-output matrices infinitely faster than the human. Infinite, is not an exaggeration, but a reasonable assumption. It is therefore the human player requires the help of the code while dealing with the code, as there will always be a part of the map overlooked by the eyes, the ears, the mind, thus will be lost to the engaged code.

No, one cannot rely on allies in these games, and certainly not with these lines of codes. The current conditionals of the code are deterministic; the random nature is supported by terrible and arbitrary events; and all of them in any case not pure, but pseudo-random generated, as they are the product of the digital processor. The code will send the call-to-arms as soon as it has enough favours of you. After the monstrous expansion, who knows what happened to that mechanic, as currying-favours was in the talks, but the personal interest was already obliterated before its release. No idea how it is now, but until-and-with the emperor, it passively increased in time, and by answering to the call for any type of war, and by giving lands to allies in peace deals. Or not with the defensive wars, perhaps. Who knows, but not caring bars the necessity to be curious about it any more.

Never ally, and never stay allied, as the code will call into its pointless wars, and will keep the player out of action until it achieves whatever it calculates as an objective. Seldomly the result will be beneficial for the player, but this is not enough incentive for taking that risk.

...and ottos?

No. Ottos never require any type of allies, from the start to the end. The only time player-ottos keeps alliances is at the beginning, and that is for the mission leg to achieve that aforementioned extra diplo-rep. For the other times, it is only due to the fact that some tags will not be vassalised easily. That is the only moment when there will be an alliance for the player-ottos. Only until the ally is vassalised. Allying france-tag? Hah. Is this a role-play of historic-course? What next? Supporting the independence of sweden? Has anyone heard of council of trent? Bold, as the game is not a simulation, but an arcade, that does not allow such delicacies to the player. And kudos, for trying to role-play this arcade-game; such enthusiasm is enviable. Regardless; instead, the french-tag, when allied, will take the Defender of Faith, and it will still come to help against the player, whenever an attack is planned on another co-religionist of the same french-tag. Besides, that is nothing. The french-tag will call the player-ottos when it wants to attack, for example, genoa. The war may take ten years, and this is only an optimistic estimate. That code-french-tag does not even prolong its war against the code-english-tag for that long. In the end, it may take one province, perhaps, or even nothing, except 10% war rep. Not even lump sum of ducats to share. The player will be in utter loss with such an alliance.

Never ally, but vassalise. It is the ottos. There is no need for an alliance.


The other specific part is, the religion. Ottos are sunni. Surprise.

There is the mechanic legalism-mysticism for the muslim faiths in the game. To this day, since the conception of the mechanic, which had undergone some changes, but does not matter; to this day, still not understanding what this is supposed to mean. No. None of the answers satisfies a proper explanation for it. And no, gave up trying to understand whatever it means, very long time ago. At the end of the day, only the mechanics remain. It is a ridiculously designed one, and only the most powerful muslim tags can afford to use it for its full potential. This excludes all tags in Africa, except the mamluks, and every other muslim tags in Asia, except the timurids. This means that the legalism-mysticism mechanics can be properly used only by three tags. Yes, the third one is the ottos.

The benefits of the mechanic are various, and judging by those, and its semi-controllable nature, it is still not the worst, such as the shinto mechanics, which completely depend on events. Instead, the muslim mechanics depend on decisions whenever a new ruler assumes the control, or with pseudo-random events, or... war targets. True faith targets throw the slider to the mystic side by a measly -16, or sometimes, -33 (generally when the target has high opinion of the player), but heretic and heathen targets will push towards the legalist side by a consistent +25.

That is the reason why as the ottos, the player has to target the heretics or heathens at the beginning of the game. To achieve high legalism. Why? Oh, right, the benefits. The legalism will give higher tax, manpower, and... technology cost reduction. Add this to the dhimmi estate bonus, and the ottos are the only tag to properly benefit from that estate, then the reason becomes as obvious as the sunshine. As the time passes, and the technology levels reach about 8 to 9, there will be no need for further use. But there is still one more benefit, that is the high legalist or mystic case.

Above +75 or below -75, an action becomes available. For the case of high legalism by +75, Enforce Faithful Adherence action is there to choose, reducing the corruption by 2. The result is obvious. Debase the currency, and push the button. For the case of high mysticism by -75, there is the Call on Religious Followers. Double the yearly manpower. As if the ottos would require that. But this will be beneficial in the future of the tag, yet not at the beginning of the run. In the beginning, the economy is good enough, but not rich. The technology costs are high, even with a turbo-ruler. So, legalism it is, meaning initial targets shall be heretics, or heathens.

There is one last specific detail for the ottos, again about its religion. Muslim faiths can invite scholars. That is right, this is the main reason for those vassals, but of muslim faith. The benefits are again various, with the most important ones as the jafari school, giving +10% shock damage, and the hanbali school, giving -10% aggro-exp. The maliki -10% dev-cost is notable, the zaidi -10% shock damage received does never hurt to keep in the pocket. The rest is only circumstantial. That being the case, in the beginning, that is the other reason for keeping hisn kayfa as vassal, by +1 merchant of the shafi'i school. The cost of invitation is 50 admin, and the ottos can afford it. The merchant should be sent to crimea node, and that is it.

Yes, that is it about the advantages of the ottos. And the topic of ideas has not even been mentioned yet. That will come later. On the other hand, there are some points to mention, regarding the religion. There have been always the case of coptic, orthodox, or even catholic otto-runs in the past, since the development of the religions. About such adventures, the broadcast will continue after a brief break.

- leaves the workstation, begins to laugh.
Coptic ottos. Laughter intensifies.
Orthodox ottos. Laughter level reaches screaming.
Catholic ottos. Falling on the ground, cannot stop laughing. -
- A couple of hours later -​

Yes, ahem, moving on.



Explanation, reasoning, description, summarising, justifying. It becomes too much, and the map is still staring. The war for the city is over, and another mission leg is succeeded, giving even more perma-claims. The next target is the isolated epirus. Poor lads, designed for a different thrill on the balkans, but with the catholic denomination. Still, they do have a bit more of a chance than the roman empire with the isolated orthodoxy. But as the code, that chance is null. The existence of the tag serves as a means of another alliance to be called upon, and providing 10% war-rep, ducats to the player, forfeiting the claims, and such. This time, the alliance-bingo of the code hits the genoa. Good, a rich one. But before the onslaught can begin, send the diplomats to the balkan tags. Playing the ottos does not mean immunity to the aggro-exp.

Yes, aggro-exp is dangerous, even for the ottos. But only at the beginning, when the entire neighbourhood begins to forge claims. Even wallachia. That is why, send the diplomats. Especially the silly tag cilli (another smooth one, filcat. You must be a comedian. Do you do birthdays?), which can out of nowhere initiate a coalition, that results in a war with the best naming convention of the game. Punitive wars, which can be deadly for the run, might prove detrimental for a clean otto run. One coalition, yes, manageable; two, sure, why not. The third one will break the nerves of the strongest. There is no need. Increase the opinions of all possible candidates, from cilli to bosnia, from papal states to newly independent naples. Yes, -50 aggro-exp, in addition to low diplo-rep, along with a weak military, but only for the calculation of the code, that will result in a coalition. Not when the candidates have positive opinion. Yes, that is why it is always advantageous to maintain high opinions with all neighbours, and their neighbours.

This leads to the first idea. Of course. There is no dispute. Diplomatic-ideas set is the only choice. From scotland to ming, from brandenburg to mamluks, from sweden to mongolia. If the tag is not a coloniser, the first one is Diplo-set. Hearing some unsolicited advice, as considering administrative idea set. For ottos.

The broadcast will continue after a brief break.

- leaves the workstation, begins to laugh.
Administrative ideas for ottos. Laughter intensifies,
reaches to the limits of screaming,
then falling on the ground, without any foreseeable end to laughing. -
- A couple more of hours later -
​

Diplo-set, when the tech is reached. Power on. Ordering a couple more galleys, making the fleet 20, going over the limit. They are galleys, and cheap. Choosing the naval doctrine for galley combat ability, +15% more. It is the ottos, and the Mediterranean is a dangerous place. Venetians, genoese, not to mention mamluks. Of course, the day for the iberians will come, too. Get ready. Epirus; she will call genoa. Good, as said before. Quick war, occupy Arta and Cephalonia, then proceed to embark on the city of Genoa. The Crimean holdings were occupied by theodoro; the beyliks occupied the Aegean islands. The city of Genoa is on hills, the siege will take some time. It does not matter, as the general has a siege pip. It ends fast, as expected. Ducats, war reparations, give up claims. No need to take any provinces, especially not the islands of Scio and Lesbos. They will come handy for propagating institutions, if the relations are good enough. Yes, that is a concern, and besides, genoa is a merchant republic: She will increase the goods produced in the trade node, which is the main one for the player's benefit.

...and epirus? Farewell, neapolitan friends. Or welcome to the empire. Emperor mehmed, is still in charge. Formerly padishah. Yeah, the title depends on the expansions to the game, do not ask.

Institution, that reminds the need to check the date. Eyes fetch the right-upper corner. It is 1451, aaand... of course, it spawns in Venezia. Venice is busy with defending against the mamluks, for a trade dispute. This is good, as the code endures some damage by the frantic code again. Code versus code, the best scenario. But it takes a bit long. Code versus code, that is expected. It takes a bit more. The patience silo is exhausting its resource faster than advancing-tick of the pseudo-real time. Finally, it ends. Mamluks take ducats. Huh.

Diplomats return. Every neighbour is happy. Before considering the next target, the diet convenes, and the luck shines from the screen upon the eyes of the player. Take a province from the Albania area.

Ah, albania. Allied with a naples, that has recently been mauled by papal states, left without a fort, and a ferrara, two provinces, but a fort. And guaranteed by the venice-tag. This is the reason for choosing the rivals late, and not expanding maniacally. Five (5) vassals, and a couple more provinces, booom, the venice will no longer be eligible for a rivalry. But below average expansion by conquests, keeping the military less than 45k, and the rivalry is intact. The best possible scenario. Two relatively rich, one rich war-ally of the target, and ripe for humiliation. Skanderbeg, your time has come.

But it is venice. 1 galley was lost in the epirus war; now 19 galleys. They will not be enough against the beast of the Adriatic. Order for constructing more galleys. More. More. MORE. Move the troops. Check the advisors. Finally, Matthaios Melissinos, a commandant. Welcome to the council, give +5% discipline. No naval reformer, though; not ideal, but manageable. All is set.

Except the music. Searching the archives of the mind. The serenity of the luck, the cheap achievements, the quick accomplishments, they nurture the darkening, the mind rests for a while from the stress of the reality happening. Yes, let the dusk be greeted, let the twilight be torn by the shining of the day, while inviting the darkness inside. The eyes are locked. The brows are knitted.

Spoiler: Into the haven

[*]

​

[*] Haven, from the album of the same name, by Dark Tranquillity (2000)
Original lyrics include "Deeper now it seems long before", instead of "But (...)"; kept the latter version, whereas acknowledging that it can be due to a hearing misinterpretation of the lyrics.

Edit 07.07.2023: Corrected formatting, factual, grammatical, lexical mistakes. Corrected images.

 

[coz1]

Took the plunge, I see. Nice. Big surprise you took the Ottos. Good luck, and my eyes thank you for using larger font.

 

[Falhxer]

I like the style.

 

[filcat]

Original to the eleven, as usual.

Kudos for the This Is Spinal Tap reference; sincerely grateful for the kind words!

---

Big surprise you took the Ottos.

Well, the tag is good for a relaxed, chilled, easygoing, nonchalant, and carefree run.

Oh, the wink. Now get it. Yeah, in that regard, instead of the ottos, the karaman-tag would truly deserve the winking sign. But there is no desire for stress-induced comatose mode for a run. Hmm. When the mood is strong enough, maybe, one more time with them. Yet it is the same run, only to end-up with the rûm. Without the interesting events.

and my eyes thank you for using larger font.

Yep, glad to be of service. Though, the chapters involve short ones (measured by universal filcat-o-metre). So whenever editing-eyes start to twitch upon seeing any longer than usual posts, the font-size-9 will strike back, lol.

Good luck,

Luck? For the ottos?

Spoiler: Good luck?

Wait. Good luck, as for writing up the AAR. Cheers!

Spoiler: Oh, good luck. For 'writing'.

---

I like the style.

Sincerely happy if own writing gives a joyful reading. Cheers!

 

[filcat]

The incessant urge to write, the passionate love for maps, the ever-impossible hope for a difference in the game design; none satisfies the hunger truly in the mind while the grey is becoming the dominant colour of the day. Morrow runs over the dark, and the screen is loaded up.

On the other hand the imagination hits the reality, as the urge was never addressed fully. Graphics radiate with the ever remarkable art, that is the certainty. They never were the priority in the eyes, since the beginning of the time. The colourful, gleaming, polished, glaring, artistic expressions allow the joy for admiration, yet the experience overcomes the sweetened feelings, for it was never the reason for the need. Bits, textures, renders, overlays, all of them gave the delight, but the meticulous paintings or the fluid hand-drawings, they never hurt to look upon. That has been the fact, yet never was it put as the primary in the order for finding the answers to the inquiry. In fact, the graphics were supposedly improved at every iteration of every other game in the course of the advancing ages, even though it has been about forty years for software of fun. For this one, not even twenty years. But return to the overview of all software, and they plunged into the ever-lasting agony of three-dimensional fetish, becoming nastier, dirtier, duller, uglier. Opting for the clean or the colourful, yet preferring the simplistic over the purportedly more advanced looks. This choice confines the position into the ridiculous dichotomy of old-school against new-age. Detesting the meaningless discussion over it, the sentiment is certain on the love of joyful screens as opposed to the cold emptiness of three-dimensional, dead-inside, out-of-void attempts. If the art is targeting a comical background, then it is readily possible with vector or raster; if the freezing serious is the name of the objective, then it is forever-proven with innumerable examples of two-dimensional bits. None, on the contrary, has been the case for three-dimensional texture rendering. None.

Nevertheless the illustrious power of the visual arts; it has no connection to the urge to write. The writing has been the source of creation before even touching a pen, bringing it on a paper. It has been the most powerful aspect, and it has no connection to the urge, as it is the mind itself. It has been writing by itself, it has been alive by itself. The game only bolstered another aspect, but the need of passion was destroyed forever ago for that. If there is no aspiring love for the software, then there remains the obsessive hatred for it. This brings the reasoning to a dead-end, and further fronts have to be opened to battle with the questions.

It could have been easier when the mind has not been busy with the prolonged inputs, all of which are needless, yet most of it come from the game itself. A recursive function it becomes, cursing the process into a trap. What if the game is not played, then would the mind be freed to expand over other possible domains? No. There is a problem. The game is still played, before even hitting the play.

The eyes squint, the forehead wrinkles, the brows lower, the lips elevate. Are you playing the game, right now, even if the software is not started, yet? The decisions, the choices, the preferences, the actions, the operations, the processes, they are all running within the ever-infinite space of the mind. The imagination comes from it, as well as it powers the creative dreams. The game is running already, and the opening moves are made, the counter-acts are observed, the evasive-manoeuvres are devised, the plans are set in motion; and all are in the mind, yet the icon is still there, unclicked. Is this the case, that you are trying to realise those never-accomplished dreams? What dream can there be, with what target, with which aim? The objective is to enjoy the moment, that is certain, yet vague and unsatisfactory. The data to be processed only to bring another solution to a problem that is just created, that can be the answer, but the equations were never there, since the software itself is the source of them. The simple joy of achieving an accomplishment; can it be such simple, ordinary, banal, only then to write about it, as the writing does proceed simultaneously, since forever, and always?

You hit the play, and the questions go away. Even though they are still burning.

---

CHAPTER II​

Hello ottos. No, not missed you. Said multiple times, do not smile. It is not a return. The ottos are sad.


It is time to chill, as the reconquest of albania-tag is over, and the venice-tag is out. Seize estate lands to increase the crownlands. It is funny, that this feature was devised, but only at the end-phase of the design. It is more than funny; ridiculous. Remembering the before-ages, distributing each province at a time, to a different estate. Then there were the core-states and territories without full cores. If the state is shared with the estate, then what is territory, was the question. All such questions thundered the anger in the past, as they made you realise, that this was not a simulation, but an arcade-game. All that potential, the hope, the dream, the serene aspiration, the happy future, the wish for possibilities ever-near to the limits, endless they seemed. They hit the reality of making money with a violent sound. Arcades make money, not simulations. You are not the target customer, you do know it.

Habsburgs entered the run by their luck, as always, otherwise it would be even faster to reach the saturation level. That will be explained, but later. But now, austria-tag is well, alive, enjoying its personal union over hungary-tag, without even a flinch of an action, but by an event. Not complaining, as it is good for the player, and as the otto-player, there is no excuse to complain. If it was a venice-forever-run, then it would be rage with lightning strikes.

Of course, austria begins her moves, against the venice-tag. She is not busy, as the burgundian-charles-the-bold-wants-to-fight-lunacy-roulette hits the france-tag, instead of a war for Liege province against the empire. They will eat each other out, and as the otto-player, none of it is important. None. Not even at this point of the run, when the date shows 1460, and the ottos have not even succeeded in embracing the Renaissance. But yes, it is still king mehmed. Or no, it has been emperor, since the war for the city. That turbo-ruler gains another trait: Scholar. The result is, clear, not even crystal, but air. The standard mixture, not the actual material currently available over the planet, as it is highly contaminated. Move on from the analogy, tech-cost reduction by being scholar, and then there is the legalism of the muslim faith, and emperor mehmed being a turbo-ruler, add to the dhimmi estate, gives the player the ultimate advantage, by reaching the technology levels earlier than the rivals, the neighbours, the world. Even without the institution. That is why playing the ottos is the chilling process, as opposed to madness-driven lübeck-tag. Danish pretenders entered through our borders! Stackwipe. No, lübeck, you stay there, cannot deal with your mess, not while in this mood.

But the ottos do not come with all the honey and the beer to enjoy. There is the case of succession. Granted, it is inherently simpler than all tags, and has no pu-madness as the christian tags. The horde-tags have a bit of a problem, but all are bound to the nonsensical ruler-heir design of the game. For the ottos, well they are the one of the two tags in the game, with the unique mechanics. Ottos can choose among three candidates when declaring an heir, whereas everyone else is doomed with pseudo-random number generator shocks. No danger regarding personal unions, and able to see the attributes of the possible heir before the succession, is the clear advantage of the ottos. The other tag is, of course, mamluks. They can choose too, but without knowing the statistics prior to the decision. It is still an advantage. Sort of. Maybe. Whatever.

Yet this is not an actual advantage. The heirs are still produced with the pseudo-random number generators. Of course, they do tend to have higher numbers for their skills, based on observations supported by confirmation bias. Nevertheless, with the emperor expansion, there has been an interesting surge in the occurrence of a peculiar event. Kilic alayi; the kılıç alayı, fun words. First one has the singular meaning of sword; the second is a word with multiple meanings, ranging from mockery, to a batch, to a regiment, to a parade. The last meaning, a parade, is the one that is applied in this combination. This was a ceremony for the enthronement, when choosing the one to hold the sword of osman, the dynasty founder. Thus, the event is encoded and given context as such. In the game, whenever an otto-ruler dies without an heir, a ruler of the same dynasty from sons of osman assumes the control. Needless to say, the bias of the confirmation leans on the claim, that these surprise-rulers after such a succession are usually abysmal. And it still does not matter, as such disadvantage is only a dent on a wall of advantages with near-infinite dimensions. It is the ottos. Otherwise the saturation level of the game would be reached even faster.

The date advances, the ottos are chilling, drilling, accumulating ducats. The shadow kingdom happens, and then there is a pop-up message of a tag preparing to attack another. SHT! You forgot to disable the message setting for getting such a pop-up. Quick, go into the message settings, type attack in the search, filter by others, and disable the ones that are broadcast to the world, when a ruler exposes the plan. Otherwise from norway to butua, from ryukyu to aztecs, the game will bombard you whenever a tag has a buffoon ruler, and plans to attack another tag. Message settings. These are not only good to have, but mandatory for such games, which are projecting every sort of information package towards the player. Without them, the player is punished by the incomprehensible design choices, and whatever they bring upon as a message, as a toast, as a pop-up, as an information, by default, and ostensibly, most of them are irrelevant. Kids, do not design a game without message settings, which allow the player to choose what type of message to receive as a pop-up, a log entry, a side note, or not. Ah, ck3. You can raid counties. Thank you, never asked.

Remember that humiliation of venice-tag? It gave additional 30 power projection, but it is also an accomplishment for the accumulating splendour in the Age of Discovery. Now falls the icon for age ability to choose, as enough splendour has been accumulated, by 1460. Of course, the ottos have the unique choice of Guns of Urban. This gives +33% siege ability, effectively turning the simple spear-bow-sword armies into bombard-cannons.

But, no.

Yes, there is no need. It is the ottos. The ottos do not need even the otto-ability. Instead, choose the Justified Wars, giving aggro-exp reduction of -10%. Why? What is the point of faster sieges of forts, when the war ends in the complete victory, but taking one province would incur a coalition started by ulm, joined by the entire Europa, including mamluks and qara qoyunlu? That is the reason.

The date advances a bit more, and the ottos are swimming, playing tennis, discussing the existential problems within the context of linguistics, while going through a rigorous experiment on windmill blades under storming weather conditions. Meanwhile your diplomat returns, telling that the claim on the island of rhodes is ready. You look at the polished document, and stop the aerodynamic-tests. Do not miss any opportunity on a recently left alone knights-of-the-rhodes. They usually go with the venice-tag, otherwise frequently allied with the france-tag. But the venice-tag had already been mauled by the code-mamluks, had been bruised by the player-ottos, and now being dead-beaten by the code-habsburgs. The code-knights, out of desperation, are allied to the cyprus-tag. This is the perfect scenario. It is unnecessary to point out, but the knights have to be eliminated as early as possible while playing in the vicinity, either as the ottos, or as mamluks, or as karaman. Otherwise, they will raid the coasts forever, lowering the prosperity. That is not a glimmering, golden, cute icon on the province window, but a critical aspect providing numerous modifiers. High prosperity means lower dev-cost, higher income, and increased propagation of institutions. It will passively increase over time, but with very low increments. Else, there have to be forts covering entire coasts to prevent 100% devastation on the provinces.

The ottos return from swimming, leaving the rackets, saying goodbyes to friends in discussion. One stack is enough, while the other is resuming its recreational activities. Drilling. Move the transports. Declare war on the knights. Blockade the ports of cyprus. Embark. Wait for the siege. Done. Check aggro-exp. Only venice and… no one else. That is why you improved the opinion with everyone else. And that is why you chose diplomatic ideas, because you need additional diplomats. Full-annex. Also, send one diplomat to shirvan-tag, your only ally, now down to two provinces. Ally, because still not able to vassalise.

Shirvan-tag is critical, as it is the only one left with the jafari school; +10% shock damage will be valuable, but only when having less than -50 mysticism; so, investment for the future. The other one is the mazandaran-tag, and it is nigh-on-impossible to vassalise that one. The reasons are there, when the cursor is hovered over the cross. It is far away, sure, but more importantly, it has the economic base. This is the most obscure one to comprehend, as you had needed to check the pages on the net for an explanation, you remember. Basically, when the target has high development in terms of tax and production, the vassalisation cost will be propelled with soyuz into space. The distance, the currently recruited army size, the diplo-rep, etc. can be overcome in time and with sufficient expansion. Not the economic base. That requires an enormous difference to cover. But shirvan-tag? That is not quite possible at the beginning, yet now it is down to two provinces as aforementioned. It should be possible, but no.

“Greetings from mehmed of the ottos. Now padishah. Err… emperor.”
“Which one is it exactly?”
“Eh don’t go into that subject, it can take days. Anyway. Would you mind if I ask you to join the lot? As a vassal. Come to the ottos. Adventures beyond dreams. Sunny beaches, snowing mountains, silent plains, delightful orchards. An experience never to forget. Visit the ottos.”
“Yeah, I do mind. You are too far away.”
“Visit the ottos. Enjoy the food, and- wait -what?”
“Yeah mate, there are aq and qara qoyunlu between us. Not to mention georgia and karabakh, don’t forget those.”
“…but we have 46k army and…”
“Naah. We are good.”
“Da faq?”
“Anything else?”
“… I’ll be back.”


The war of austria-tag ends, with a surprising pace. This is good, as the code shows a small bit of promise. Very small. In any regards, venice-tag is defeated with heavy punches, which means… it can no longer be considered as a rival for the player-ottos. The venice-tag is out. New rival to choose. Check the poland-tag. Good, they chose to form the union with the lithuania-tag. Do not get surprised, as the code occasionally opts for not forming the union, bringing its inevitable doom onto itself quicker than ever. This time, it chose to form it fortunately, and that is a good sign for the current scenario. But… wait. They are allied to – austria-tag? Your lips stretch, bringing the joy of smile to the day. This is really good, as it means the code is alive, functioning, calculating, as it has truly realised the player is the ottos, therefore employing all its skills to prevent its unavoidable destruction. None will matter, of course, as it is already said since the beginning. It is the ottos. No tag, no coalition, no trade league, no alliance ring can oppose the player-ottos. It can only provide an interesting challenge, and that is all.

This is also good news for the player, as there will be rivals for a longer time in the run. What is the reason for obsessing with the power projection, you hear the voice of the question. Your eyes open, a little wider than before, but not in a shocking gesture, rather, in an inquisitive manner. It is interesting to see such disregard for the mechanics of the game, and they are not that much in numbers, and they are not even that remarkable in quality. Power projection, which is the by-product of the rivalry mechanic, since it was conceived, is one overlooked aspect of the game. Usually assumed as the +1 monarch point generator when over 50. This is a gross simplification. It is true that the monarch points are the essential resources of the game, and they are entirely dependent on the monarch’s skills. Except for the tributaries, so ming-tag is always the most powerful at the end of any discussion. Regardless, the sources are scarce to none for monarch points, yes, but power projection does not mean only that. It is, actually, the ultimate number.

It is the ultimate indicator, for the game to run on its course. It not only provides prestige and fort defence bonuses, along with morale boost; power projection means there is rivalry. Rivalry stands in parallel. The target tag can be vassalised, but the necessary +190 opinion cannot be achieved? Check whether the target has a rival. Target cannot be allied when seeking protection while playing a relatively weak tag? Check whether the target has a rival. Then send a grave insult to the rival of that target. Insults are not fun-texts for the amusement of the human player. They provide opinion boost to the rivals of their addressee. Useful for vassalisation targets which do not allow royal marriages. Even this is not the actual reason for claiming the importance of the power projection and rivalry. Without a rival, the game will die.

Yes. The game will die when there are no rivals. It is a code, running calculations for its decisions. And the code is not an artificial intelligence, as it cannot save information, analyse and process it to achieve a new information, for a different decision. It will simply not care about the player, when the player surpasses every other tag. When there are no rivals, the code will be invalidated to make any move against the player. Even if it has delirious desire for the lands of the player, it will never take a direct offensive action against the player. In any case, when the player has four (4) vassals, the code will go silent; with more vassals, it will just shut down. The alliances do not count for the calculation of the might, as the code has other aspects to bypass that. Bold leader, hard-coded events, and such, therefore the england-tag declaring war on france-tag by doing nothing, or the burgundy-tag berserking for the province Liege, or the Danzig misery of poland-tag. The code will not dare to attack a player with five (5) vassals when saved from the chains of hard-coded events; and when the player has no rivals left, it will never even bother to function. It is therefore the power projection is that much important, meaning there has to be rivals for the run to proceed its calculations. In the end, playing the ottos means this: While being the most powerful, limiting own potential to keep rivalries intact. One more province, one more technology, one more additional force limit, one more institution embraced, and there will be no eligible rivals, and the game will die.

So, the poland-tag allying the austria-tag; this is good. Good. Very good. They will die, together, miserably.

Finally, the heir event prompts, giving three pathetic options to choose from. The numbers do not look good, and the only possibility is a 9-monarch, equally distributed. Let this heir be called, selim. How creative. Move on.

Still advancing in technology, faster than any neighbours, and their neighbours, gaining innovativeness, and the Renaissance has not been embraced yet. Even more advantages, as the innovativeness will reduce every cost requiring a monarch point. Move some of the castles for better positions; destroy the ones on the islands, and the one in Selanik. Seize estate lands.


A herald arrives. From england-tag.

England-tag makes an alliance with the denmark-tag, good, splendid. They will drown, together, wretchedly.

Uh-oh. It is still 1465, but haji of the house giray, the ruler of the crimea-tag, is old. This means there is a high chance of crimea-tag will get the event, thus making it a march for the ottos, or giving the ottos a subjugate-cb. And the player is the ottos. This is bad. Out of all advantages bestowed upon the ottos, this one is the most unfair. Unfair for the code, unfair for the player when not playing the ottos, and redundant for the player-ottos. Yet, it is still not the ultimate unfairness, when considering all the pu’s, the events, the claims of any other turbo-tag; castile-aragon, england-france, austria-hungary-bohemia-poland, and numerous others. Meanwhile, mzab dies within the first months of any run. Naturally. Ulm survives, though.


Event pops-up. Convert Hagia Sophia, or not. Opt to leave the place alone; it costs 20 towards mysticism. Still not understanding this mysticism and legalism, but whatever. At least the event gives loyalty to the dhimmi estate when opting for leaving the church as it is.

Military points fill up the limit; hire generals, increasing the professionality of the army, instead of pouring them into development; that is unnecessary while waiting for institution. It is the ottos, so in Europa; there is rarely a need for force-adopting an institution in or around Europa. Do not overlook the army professionality. Suppose hiring two (2) mercenary companies, and it will be drained in no time, causing the sieges to last forever.

Diet convenes, and the luck radiates as a brand new plutonium out of the ground. Incorrect analogy, as the plutonium becomes dull when oxidised. Though, the luck in the random mission is annexing the sons of ramazan, which will now cost without the -3 diplo-rep upon completion. It can very well be fantasised as a shining element, in this case. But the chilling time is over, as the barracks are full of fat and lazy janissaries. Time for a walk. Check the available targets. Of course, consider the mysticism-legalism issue. Still requiring additional legalism, as it is early to go for full mystic; and this means a heretic or heathen target. In the east, there is currently the aq, and no one else. In the west, there is wallachia, but the claims on her have not been achieved yet. Austria-hungary, her round is not up yet. Not that her polish alliance gives any concerns; as expected, poland-lithuania-tag has already exhausted all of its manpower over teutonics and for danzig. Eyes closed, shaking head, the code will never learn how not to waste every manpower over two-provinces, thoughts linger. Then which target remains?

Oh.

Of course.

Hello, serbia.

You will correct that mistake, forgetting about the serbia-tag. It is one of the crazy-fun tags to play with, especially remembering those moments of screams-inside over the keyboard to the screen, when the france-tag takes defender of faith and proclaims to protect every catholic tag in the Balkans, while playing serbia. But those are just memories, and now the player is the ottos, and there is no hope for the serbia-tag.


The music is ready, then.

Spoiler: No hope.

[*]​

[*] Emergence, of the album with the same name, by Shylmagoghnar (2014)
Minor appropriation on lyrics, for only one word.

Edit 03.07.2023: Corrected format, factual, typographical, lexical, semantic mistakes.

 

[filcat]

The rotation continues, and the ones on the surface do not notice its effects, therefore falling into the false ideas, such as assuming it being a steady object. In fact, their entire existence depends on that rotation. It is a direct result of material collapsing under gravity, producing other forces; and force being just as the friction, overlooked in any moment of the life coming out of organic materials which developed a mind capable of thinking, and being wrong. The example of friction, is a curious one, as it is the force that allows those beings to stand still and walk. Without it, there would not be an evolution to lead into vertebrates. Not even that, there would not be intersecting bodies, impact effects, and even if it is a side-effect in the form of waste, yet still needed in few or some or many cases of the universe, there would not be heat. But the heat is another form, in terms of energy it is classified, and that does have another level of story. The rotation, though, it comes with its own by-products and after-effects and equations. And yes, it does have quite the dance of love with the gravitational field of the universe, bending the reality for the understanding of those beings. Yet the beings are so small, the field remains almost a faint thought, then the force vectors and the body motions and the friction and the acceleration and the coriolis and even the magnus effect come to aid in order to fulfil the needed satisfaction in the answers to many questions. The summary of those questions is, simple: How. And it is the ultimate one. The only possible resolution for preventing the mind from falling forever.

The result is, nevertheless, explained in the colloquial terms. The sun rises.

Such simplicity gives away the drop of tear. Beautiful, as it is real. Even if it was not, then it would still be charming, as a form of performance, just as Brad Dourif, playing the role of Grima, dropping one, single, full, sole tear from his eye, upon seeing thousands of Uruk-Hais and Orcs and Half-orcs and Wild Men, saluting Saruman, played by Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee.

But colloquial terms lead the mind away from the how, and land it into the desolate wastes of the why. The question is glaring dormant as before, since the screen is looking back at the being. As the motivation is in the target range of questioning, the existence of that type of question is not questioned. Of course this line had to be written, for the answers escape, then the question itself has to be questioned. The integrity of it resists the inquisitive rays emitted from the eyes, so the answers have to be provided. The fronts previously opened have been defeated or averted one by one, and new horizons await for different battles.

Perhaps the obvious banality may provide another aspect of discussion, even if by itself it cannot end in any kind of fruitful argumentation. Yes, the history.


What if, the reason for clicking the icon twice, rapidly, ordering the program to boot up, and get ready, just to dissolve in the madness of the software itself; what if the reason is the history?

Now the new front is opened, the sitting position changes to show the frustration. No, it can never be that. The history and the software have nothing in common with each other. This is also an inflammatory topic to discuss, as it seems that the game is seen as a gateway to know about history, to learn the history, to exercise the history, as if – as if it is a simulation. No, it is not a simulation.

Even if it was a simulation, that would nonetheless mean nothing, in terms of learning history. The nanosecond of calculation by the processor as soon as the run is unpaused, then it is not a simulation, it can never imitate the history, it can never mimic the life completely. Multiple reasons, many explanations, heated discussions are wasted on this, yet it seems it is an alluring notion to call the game a history simulator. No, negative, never. Unpause, and the parameters are forwarded into the matrices as coefficients, and the expected output is formed, and the solution is calculated, and the moves of the code are brought forward against the player. There are only numbers, within equations, within loops, within conditionals, within functions, within recursive batches, and that is it.

Moreover, to conflate with the idea of re-entering and going through history by means of such a game is a defective argument, since it depends on the parameters used to simulate the point of the history. Then the history, but of the simulation, takes its course into its own routines, forever leaving the realm of reality. Now the argument of realism can be embarked upon the discussion, instead of reality. That will question the legitimacy of the code, the quality of the simulation, the plausibility of the play.

Yes, the play. That is a word, again overlooked, and often scolded. The child’s play. The simple play. The futile play. Then all using such claims will go and watch a film. Or a theatre play. The age of theatre is slowly fading, yet it is still there, so why not. The point is the impatience of the disputant, disregarding the importance of play in the life; while aspiring to live with it, but only for entertainment. On the contrary, the play, is, important. The act, is, important. The art, is, important, that it cannot be taken out of life for any reason, of which mostly deemed as too snobbish, too detached, too... artistic? No.

And the average of the points mentioned in the lunacy of the previous paragraphs is that the play is there, always. Even if a life is left devoid of the art of film, theatre play, radio play, book, painting, sculpture, architecture, perfume, dish, and music, and numerous others you fail to provide in this list, the play will resume in the mind. Do not worry, but they are called dreams.

The brain is the organ that keeps the life, keeping other organs in line, and then providing the mind to the one, but in the case of the nights, it is mandatory to sleep, for the functions of restructuring, reorganising, reconsidering the records of the day. The evolution since the hunter-gatherer days of the humankind gives the explanation for the nights to sleep, yet the dreams are still there as interesting research subjects. Still, a simplistic attempt on explaining the dream can be provided, as they are the plays of the individual, the fantasies of the functioning brain, the acts of the sane mind, for any reason, to remaster the knowledge learnt during the day, or even to cope with the pains of the traumas endured during the day. But it is, the dream, the name of the play.

Thus comes the aspect of game, in the form of exercising it as the entertainment. Judging by the words, and the mainframe of the topic, it is easy to tie the subject into the vast and wide and open space of Role Playing Games. Yes, with the rise of computerised calculations, the age of digital games overcome any other forms, replacing the toys of the day. As theatre still stands strong against the brute force of the film, the toys will resist against the games of the computers. Yet the computers have become available even more in the infinitesimal advances of the time, and they are masterful options against such physical beings as toys. Then there is the silent giant, sleeping for hundreds of years, that is called the Role Playing Games, but on tabletop. Here is the point to succumb into the madness of the old-school teaching the new-age: Back in the day, tabletop, pen, pencil, hand-drawn maps, hand-written attributes, these were not called Role Playing Games. They were, when there were only two editions, and a close contender, yes, they were called Fantasy Role Playing.


Fantasy, as the game creators, the dungeon masters, the game players knew it was never a futile attempt to relive, nor to follow the steps of a misinformed history. They were fantasies, regardless of their setting. Be it fighting against dragons in Forgotten Realms, else charging into teutonic knights as the boyars on Lake Chudskoe - Peipsi, it was always a fantasy.

Role Playing, as it was never the game itself, but the role to play, to act in scene, to perform the art as given in the plot, either mostly improvised, yet sometimes even scripted, yet all depended on a system of functions, controlled by the players through the numbers of their attributes, and of course, luck. Dice are there for a reason.

The rise of digital processors crushed the tabletop, and the latter could only stand and have started to fight back recently. Regardless, the name devolved into Role Playing Games, and the entertainment element dominated the activity. Thus comes the question, as opposed to the question: As it cannot be a simulation, can this urge to play this game, despite all the hatred for it; can this be explained by the game aspect of the program?

The first reaction becomes a diversion to gain some time against the counter-strike of the opposing question. Interesting, is the fast reply, yet the situation is quickly recuperated into a dismissal. How? How can it be regarded as a game? And what type of game? A strategy? Really? Do you think it can really pretend to be a worthy opposition to a game, no, not a game, but a discipline, a school, even a sport; can it be a contender for Chess? Or beyond that, can this game be considered as a strategy, when the one with near-infinite possibilities, the one with moves to be learnt maybe in an entire life-span of human-being, the one with strategic elements of not a game but almost a battlefield, is considered as a comparison; can it be a comparative strategy game against Go?


The reply does not even arrive, as it was already there, in your mind, screaming furiously: No.

Then you click on the icon, starting the game, quickly loading the last save file.

---

CHAPTER III​

Hello ottos.

The war for the serbia-tag made the impact. Therefore send those diplomats to everywhere, improve the relations, and even start to distribute all the ducats you have as Great Power Influence. Good for the influencer, gaining quick 25 opinion, but the recipient is benefiting more; they earn 1 monarch point they are lacking every month. This is actually another lucky moment for a player that is a weaker-than-turbo-league tag. Main examples have been observed while playing the holland-tag, and gaining the influence from as well as the guarantee of the france-tag. But, the player is the ottos, so that will never happen, nor they will ever need that. Turbo-tags always influence.

The army is sent to the barracks for more recreational time, and the heralds arrive. Mamluks attack qara qoyunlu. This is good, very good. If the mamluks win, then they will be more powerful, so the rivalry can be retained. Moreover they will conquer the provinces of Iraq region, and so they will be open for the player-ottos to make a move. The plan is simple; as the early dates require the otto-player to accumulate legalism by attacking heathen or heretic targets, the problem of high cost for technology can be mitigated. In time, this need will diminish, therefore there will be no need for staying on the legalist side of the slider for the muslim mechanics of the game. Then comes the time for mystic side; low on the mysticism will grant bonus for fort defence and missionary conversion strength. Both are not important at all, but only nice to have. In the Age of Reformation, the tags that convert at least 10 provinces will gain more splendour, so conversion is still in the plans for the otto-players, albeit of trivial-to-no importance. Yet, there is one other bonus with low mystic side, that is, army morale. Yes, that is required, in an ever critical fashion.

No tag on the map can confidently deal with the armies of turbo-tags such as france- or castile-spain. They will shred through all hopes of the player, as they also have the luck factor.

Yes, luck factor. The code cannot deal with the human player; are there any more ways left to discuss this any more? Anyway, as it cannot handle the reality, therefore certain tags are given luck factors, classified as lucky nations in the game. These are various, but most importantly, they have increased siege ability, lower impact on aggressive expansion, and greater manpower recovery speed. None of them can salvage the code from its misery, in any case, but they will certainly cause much trouble on the patience of the human player. Added to this, for example france- or castile-spain tags, they have enormous morale bonus by their ideas, making their army particularly dangerous. Therefore the player needs every bit of extra help that can be found from anywhere; the pseudo-random events cannot be trusted in this regard.


Moving on, chilling out. It appears that the heir is an embezzler, meaning additional yearly corruption. Fine, whatever, bring on, code; bring on every frustrating card you have in your deck. Yes, the code cannot make an efficient strategy, not one bit at all, this is not a strategy game, nor a simulation, but it does throw you stones and rocks and mud and iceballs, and sometimes, giant boulders, as events. This is nothing. Fun memories fill the mind, such as getting consecutive negative events for diplomatic reputation, each giving -1, thus being left in the middle of Europa without an ally. When the diplo-rep hits about -3 and lower, then it is certain that every tag will abandon you, along with hyper-increase in liberty desire of subjects, etc. Yeah, embezzler, that is nothing. Nothing.

Not interesting, as genoa has been beaten left and right, and it cannot hold onto her holdings; now it seems that the island of Lesbos produced a separatist movement. It is safe to assume that the genoa-tag cannot fight back with the rebels, thus with high probability they will gain their independence. Of course, ottos have a claim on the island. Not that it is needed, but put it on the list.


Hang on. Hang on a second.

“Hmmm. Aragon-tag declares some rivalries with some other tags.”
“It what mate? Are you sure?”
“Of course, I know how to read. Here is the paper; second page of Heralds of the Sidebox.”
“Aragon declared Naples as her rival. What da faaa-“
“I thought subjects cannot declare rivals. Huh. Wait. No.”
“Uh-huh. It appears to be.”
“No. No. No.”
“…”

Spoiler: 'No, no, no -'

Aragon-tag declares some rivalries. This is grave news indeed, yes, it means castile-tag is alone. The code has managed to lose the union after they formed it some years ago. Great. Splendid. Awesome. FAQ.

And faq it is, as it means the castile-tag is out. Yes, out, as it is the code. Despite having luck factor, despite its geographic position, and despite being the absolute luckiest tag in the game, the code finds a way to die out even before the first age ends. It is only 1468, and one of the potential rivalry is down for the otto-player. There will be blood between the iberian tags, further weakening their positions against the player-ottos. The game starts to give death-signals. This is bad. The only hope is the france-tag going berserk on castile-tag, and maybe it will become a worthy opponent, so that it can be chosen as a rival by the player, thus the code will function a bit longer. Otherwise, the drums of the doom are already heard. Afar, but there they are.


Frustrating, aggravating, angering. Move on. You go ahead, and sort out some choices on economics; enough ducats are accumulated, so churches and workshops shall be built. Or temples. Or wait, yeah, mosques. Sure, why not. Never knew places of worship would be considered as gold-producing tax-departments; it is an oblique relation the game design presents, but at this point, not complaining, as the news already drained the patience silos. Running on reserves of patience. Five (5), each of the buildings. Yes, generic missions, build buildings, gain 50 admin, and some yearly tax for a certain time. Unfaqingbelievable – still in the shock for castile-tag being out, and that is not a rare occurrence, remembering such scenarios from years ago. Faq. Then who else to rival? Hopefully muscovy-tag survives in this run.


Faq. Haji of the house giray dies. Crimea-tag comes as a march, right away. Splendid, as if it was needed. The player-ottos are getting more powerful with ever the increasing speed. The rivalries will fall, before even any conflict at all. Faq.

Renaissance is spread through the city and Edirne; all right, embrace it. The Renaissance is the only one to embrace without the need to check the current technology research status. Technology research status, yeah, right. These are heavy words to use on a mechanic that passively creeps through time, and depends only on the pseudo-random ruler the game gives. Whatever, the institutions will cost too much, especially for the player, with any tag. Generally the player goes for a conquest-spree, becoming large in no-time. Even when staying small and tall, the embracing cost will be always disadvantageous for the player, as the code has always the luck factor for those certain tags; the rest embrace it earlier than the player, as they usually remain small, and by being the code. But for Renaissance, it is critical, especially if the player controls the city: Konstantiniyye, Constantinopole, or Istanbul, whatever its name is, it is the city in the game, and plausible for the history that the game takes place in. It is given a crystal-glass type for the main product. When the Renaissance is embraced, a specific event prompts, and the city is the main candidate for that to trigger: Diamond District. This turns the main product into Gems, adds bonus for trade efficiency and goods produced. This is critical for the player with any tag in the region of Balkans and Anatolia, so that the trade node can get richer. It is a small percentage, but significant addition for that plan. The player should act fast, otherwise siena- or flanders-tags will get it before.


Move on. Chill out, as if you can, after those news. Anyway. More heralds. Danzig emerges. Eh, the poland-tag will drain even more manpower. This is getting worse, and frustratingly, the code-teutonic-knights are never able to prevent this insurrection.

Send diplomat to Shirvan, share the institution. Maybe it will spread faster to the rest of the world, and more rivals can arise. Maybe. Splendour points full; now the Guns of Urban can be chosen. It is 1470, but the code-ottos generally chooses the unique ability first; that is why a player with any other tag going against the ottos should initiate their offensive operations prior to 1460s. Otherwise, the code-ottos will shred everyone, despite the skill-deficiency and the bugs it has. For the player-ottos, well, it was mentioned before; the code has no hope.

Renassaince is embraced, some buildings are constructed, but still have more ducats than 500. This means, order constructing a flagship. Yes, flagship, and it is not a galley, nor a heavy. It is a light-ship, so for trade. And build it with Trade Route Map, Command Aftercastle, and… Flag Officers. First two are obvious, as extra trade per light ship, and extra navy morale, for the navy morale is everything in naval combat. Or 90%. Or 80%. The mathematics is not clear in this regard, but given by empirical data based on observations. The equation can be found from the according page on the net. So, apart from navy morale, the rest of the naval combat entirely relies on Admiral skill points. These numbers will not be pretty as long as the navy tradition stays pathetically low. Navy tradition, that subject will be covered later; but currently, there is not much chance to increase it in short time. So, the only chance is having at least not-terrible admirals. Not a dead-end, but Flag Officers are useful for this purpose: This will increase monthly chance of improving admiral points while on mission. Therefore, build the light-trade-ship, assign it to the trade-ships protecting the trade at the main-node, but with an admiral. The admiral will gain skill points with higher chances. But not with greater chances, so do not hold your breath. That is it.


Chill, relax, calm down, you are getting stressed out of no reason. Well, ok, when the code dies out so ludicrously, yes it is understandable to get angry. Move on. New technology, reaching level 7 with eight (8) years in advance. Hesitating, but clicking on the button to approve it. Cannons have arrived.

Mamluks are no longer eligible rivals for the ottos.

You close your eyes. How many times. How many times you have endured this… this… this design. You failed again. You failed to maintain the rivalry, and the game design is supposedly about overcoming rivals. Well, not with this design; it is more to maintain the rivalries. So, trying to save the code from itself while playing against the code and... Eh.

You laugh, but with a horrifying cynicism. You try to lower your voice, as your neighbours may get annoyed. You laugh, at the screen, at the game, at the ottos.

Another… Another herald arrives.

Austria-hungary tag is…

Bohemia-tag is…

You.

Are getting.

Angry.​

How many times you have to endure this design? How many times you watched the incapable code doing nothing but only annoying you? The code is only capable of moving its armies, from Toulouse, France, to Pyongyang, Korea. In 50k stacks. By foot. On land. Over entire Siberia. But it cannot keep any alliance, it cannot deal with its own aggressive expansion, it cannot end a war quick, it cannot maintain its manpower, it cannot make any strategically justifiable choice. Not one. Strategy, each time you hear it, you start to laugh angrily. And simulation? What is left there to simulate? Just two wars ago, you had to chase 17k stack of the venice-tag from Dalmatia, over Hungarian Plains, into Moldavia, then from Crimea, back to Balkans, into the heartlands of ottos, then back around Albania, you finally caught up with them, then they escaped back to Aegean Sea, landed on an island, and they got stuck there. That is it. This is the game.


You are getting angry. No, you were getting angry, and now the reserves for patience are empty. Warning signs are alarming, the alerts are screaming, the veins are bulging on your forehead; the angry is far away. You look at the map. You see them. Sons of candar, sons of karaman, wallachia.


You are full of rage. Yes, the music is already set.

Spoiler: Blind Rage

[*]
​

[*] Blinde Wut, of the album Weltenbrand, by Gernotshagen (2011). Link to unofficial audio.
Unofficial translation to english on the images. Original german lyrics include colloquial words.

Edit 03.07.2023: Corrected format, lexical, semantic, typographical, grammatical mistakes.

 

[HistoryDude]

Well, the Fourth Wall is dead.

Stupid Ottomans...

 

[filcat]

Well, the Fourth Wall is dead.

Stupid Ottomans...

Kudos; for giving the author a storm of thoughts every time with only a couple of words, whereas the author pathetically wastes hundreds of them in trying to achieve a similar effect. Kudos.

Though, this gives another idea. Should have used the phrase -Based On A True Story- for the opening, only in the sense of Fargo.

This post should do the trick, in this case.

---

Eufourgo, North AARland


​

Spoiler: This is a true story.

[*]​

[*] Fargo, North Dakota, by Carter Burwell, from the soundtrack of the film Fargo; a. Frances McDormand, Peter Stormare, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, John Carroll Lynch, Harve Presnell; d. Joel and Ethan Coen; 1996.
Audio from the official account of the composer was also published, but that is not available world-wide.
Still-images from the film.
For the title of the spoiler-box, in case not familiar with the art of Coen brothers; no, it is not.

Edit: Corrected images.

 

[filcat]

You do not know when the vivid colours of the sky have escaped into the sombre silence.

It must have been two times at the least, as the ever-surrounding light made the dance in the eyes. The rays carrying the photons over the wavelengths hit the eyes, they are transmitted through the receptor cells, and through the neurons they are processed, leading into knowledge. There would not be knowledge without the light, as there would not be material at all without it. The never-forgiving voids of the black holes still carry the questions behind the horizons imprisoning the event. Yet the rest is a great distance, and the pettiness of the percentage the material encompasses is still monstrous in proportion to the beings, who get curious, asking questions, seeking answers. The questions lead to many answers to be found; nevertheless many more arise from the ashes of the old ones, and much more are asked as the new ones are born out of themselves. Questions giving birth to questions, and that is the name of the process.

Disregarding the mechanics behind, over, aside, near the happening, the focus intensifies on the situation at the moment. The light has been replaced with the darkness, and the hopeful rays of the faraway reach for help elevating the spirits in the gloom of the night. Then come the clicks. Along with questions, again, always, forever.


What if the reading about history is enjoyed; so, then, what? Well, it is always there, that was not disputed. However, the resources for it are deemed to be more valuable when searched elsewhere, methodically, in a disciplined manner, and with a planning. Besides, it is not sufficient to see it as enjoyment, but beyond it, it is a curiosity, burning in low grade, but remaining next to the main interests. The sources to find the answers are numerous, yet it always starts with the one, and only, act, move, effort: Questioning. The readily available method is reading, naturally depends on the answers found for the questions others had asked. Even that has its own story of thousand pages, but the obvious reply is the library. The sanctuary of the mind, the hall of the silence, the treasury of the words, scrolls, pages, papers, proceedings, journals, compilations, books, encyclopaedias, tomes. That is only one method, and already lost the trail within its depths. The methods are more than that, non-intrusive leaves the place to intrusive types, hence the digging, finding the clues underneath the earth, buried cities, calcified streets, hidden potteries, piled coins, ruined, submerged, sunken. All archaic, maybe, then why not carbon dating. The disciplines collide, the geology says hi to her friends archaeology and numismatics, they hang out at the history bar.

However the passion may be shared by many, truly it becomes individual when the motivations are exposed. Yours is simplistic compared to the wide spectrum of those in that building; captivated with another aspect of the similar inquiries, yet never satisfied.

The examples differ wildly, and the experiments on water in a tube, under controlled vibration, causing loss of its steady nature, transitioning into turbulent motion, and identifying a certain number for it, so tested Osborne Reynolds in 1883. All in the journals, written stylishly, hand-drawn gorgeously, calculated meticulously. If no desire for the roaring silence between the walls of a library, then the net comes handy. Marie Salomea Skłodowska Curie exposed the knowledge within the polonium and radium elements; just as Marie Curie opened a new horizon of questions, Nikola Tesla provided the ingenious idea of alternating currents. That is how it is possible to look at a screen, read the lines, then click the mouse button twice, rapidly, and onto the screen the art of the software arrives.

The passion is there, although being a by-stander, you do acknowledge the aspect of history. But for the game, let alone a satisfactory one, this does not give any answer at all. This has been questioned already, and you do know the game cannot be used as means to meet the interest for history. The nature of the game does not allow it, and besides, as a principle, such a connection is also dismissed. The map certainly provides the gratification for the interest in geography, but more so, even the artistic expression of maps charms the mind, thus this is a default and null argument.


The clicks were a couple of years ago in the mind now, the screen is already there. Loading the file is all that is needed. Why it has to be history to discuss the nature behind the passion for such a game? What does this have any part in the question? Is it only because it does take place in ages before now? What date does it write? 1444, says the number. As aforementioned, using the terminology of the game that is glaring on the screen right now; it is just after a world-war-of-punishment, a punitive war against the sons of osman, then was the second of the name, murad, by a coalition gathered under the banner of hunyadi. It was not the last hope of the Balkans from the perspective of the ones residing in the north, yet it certainly broke the coalition in defeat; and for the riders of the south, it was every bit of a victory. The punitive war of the coalition, fought in Varna on 10 November 1444; in the terminology of the game again, that was also a truce-break war. But the story was even more complicated than that.

---

Hunyadi János was ever eager to defeat the sons of Osman, for him just another tribe riding from east, usurping the lands belonging to them. Those lands were never able to see peace, as the Roman Empire, the Venetians, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Serbia, the Kingdom of Bulgaria, all were fighting each other for those lands. The Oghuz tribes, landed by the Rûm, even after the Ilkhanate times, remained as another party in the fray. Hunyadi János made his decision, invading the south Balkans, after the sons of Osman established their dominance. In the terminology of the game, a truce-break. It was already 1444, and the sovereign was Mehmed, the child of Murad the Second. He was only 12 years old, and the azaps under Mehmed’s banner defeated the knights of Hunyadi János in September 1444. In his eyes, this would never end, until Hunyadi János would achieve victory against his enemies.

Murad the second, as silent as he was, left the throne for the first time to his child, Mehmed, in June 1444, only a couple of months before those initial battles. After those, Hunyadi János was convinced, and thus in the terminology of the game, another truce-break. He was joined by Venetians, supported by the Papal State, and a new crusader army was gathered in the name of Władysław the third of the Jagiełło, actually the king of Poland; but he was invited to rule the kingdom of Hungary, since the previous king, Albrecht the second of the Habsburgs had died. He had only one heir, but unborn, Ladislaus, the Posthumous.

With the ties of Albrecht the second of the Habsburgs, the army was joined by Bohemians and Burgundian ships. With Władysław the third of the Jagiełło and Hunyadi János, Hungarians, Croatians, Polish, Lithuanians, and Ruthenians. The Papal State called for Teutonic Knights, the Venetians provided the ships, and the kingdoms of Bosnia, Serbia, and Wallachia sent troops. The sons of Osman approached Varna, but Mehmed had already left the command of the army back to his father, Murad the second.

Then, on 10 November 1444, the armies clashed. Hunyadi János retreated, without the body of Władysław the third of the Jagiełło.

Murad the second, with the support of the nobles, returned to throne after the Battle of Varna. He fought against Skanderbeg of Albania, but he was defeated. In 1451, he fell ill, and died, leaving the throne for the second time to his child, Mehmed, then 19 years old.

Two years after his second enthronement, Mehmed gained the epithet, the Conqueror.

---

You wonder, but that takes only an ethereal portion of seconds. It could be a good strategy game, a very good simulation of fantasy with a historical setting, but it is not a strategy, nor it has any simulation side left in it; it is an arcade-game only. An interest in history cannot explain it; this does not serve as an answer to the question, why the icon is hit and the program is started, hastily, repeatedly, regularly. No tag in this design of game can oppose such a coalition at its beginning, nor at later dates; the code will fail, only the player can survive such a madness. If the code cannot handle itself, if it cannot provide such details but overrides all with enormous assumptions, if its survival depends on not unique decision capability but lump coefficients of advantages, then it is not a simulation.

The reason to play the game remains a mystery.

You click to load the save file.

---

CHAPTER IV​

Hello ottos.

The darkness of the rage has passed, the breathing remains calm, the usual level of blood-pressure is maintained. Your eyes are focused on the screen, yet they are lazily moving, as the eyelids are only half-open, showing that the joy has been already exhausted.

With a non-hope of waiting to see what will happen as the date advances, you check the court tab. The turbo-ruler of the otto-tag is about 42 years old now. The heir is 21, and that is a concern. As the game lacks any details upon the lives of any human beings to be simulated, the rulers and the heirs and the consorts do also share the same design. There is no way to estimate the time when they will pass away, certainly similar to the life itself, but in the game, it does absolutely depend on the pseudo-random number generator of the code. The monarchs can die at any time, but with increased probability at advanced ages.

This does not matter, as no concern can affect the ottos in the game, when the player is in charge. Check it, now both the ruler and the heir are given the embezzler trait by the code. This is the coping mechanism of the game; a deduction entirely based on empirical data with heavy confirmation bias, the game will pull every annoying trick instead of devising any interesting strategy. 18-monarchs, the phantom 6-6-6 rulers, will die in no-time; such heirs will die out by events of hunting accidents before the blink of eyes.

None matters for the otto-tag, yet the age difference between the ruler and the heir is a troublesome point to consider. When the sword of Damocles falls upon the ruler, the heir to ascend may very well be at an advanced age, more than the ideal. This will lower its chances to resume its computerised-lifespan. Consecutive death of nobility usually means a doom for the peoples living on the lands where those aristocrats roam; this is plausible. In the game terms, the sudden loss of stability, as well as unexpected succession of an heir without the opportunity of the player to act; that can be troublesome. But there are more events to consider. An event regarding the court-politics of the ottos prompts, giving options to either side with the mother of the ruler, or go with other choice. Choose the other; giving a new heir, but younger, and lower legitimacy. The new heir is a 12-monarch, 2-5-5; better than before. The eyes behind the half-opened lids roll. The default name is given selim again. How surprising. Accept, carry on.


Relax. Regular breathing is maintained, the armies are ordered to drill, and the decision of the State Firearm Regiments was already enacted. A small loss of income, for the ottos; 15% increase in army maintenance can affect smaller tags heavily; but for the ottos, no.

The date is showing 1475, thus reconsider the vassals. The sons of dulkadir, the kingdom of trebizond, the goths of theodoro, they served their purpose. Check other candidates. Circessia-tag is an excellent candidate, unfortunately it has -1000 as reason to never accept a vassalisation. When the crimea-tag was given by the code as a march, one province was ceded to the player as well: Matrega. It was a circessian core. Now the date to lose that core has to be waited; until 1494, the circessia-tag will say, go away, ottos. Still, proclaim guarantee, start to influence.

Bosnia-tag; annihilated by the austria-hungary aggression, survived by one province. Guarantee, influence, and increase opinion. They will be valuable for a possible reconquest-cb on the habsburgs. The austria-tag had lost the throne for empire, which means it can fall from being an eligible candidate for rivalry at any moment. So, no wars in foreseeable future. Yet, give military access, send gifts, ask for transferring trade power, do every diplomatic move on bosnia-tag, so the required +190 opinion can be achieved. Too much aggro-exp slows down the vassalisation process, so let she wait for a bit more while until persuaded.

Shirvan-tag is still too distant to vassalize; check oman-tag. That one is of hanbali school, so it will give -10% aggro-exp upon inviting scholars from those lands. Of course, they are landlocked, and extremely far away, far beyond shirvan; still, increase opinion, as already guaranteed its independence before. Investment for future.

Instead of morocco- and tunis-tags, check the ones in upper Nile, as a potential candidate for another vassal, to get one with maliki school; -10% dev-cost. This one is nice to have, but not mandatory at all. The ottos will require probably only once to invest in development, and with high probability for the Printing Press, in the next age. Only probably. Beja-tag seems good enough; down to one province, surrounded by powerful others. Guarantee, but not yet ally, nor marry royally.

Candidates are chosen, thus now one more generic mission leg can be activated: Annex vassals. Mass annexation of vassals will take time, if not properly managed. The mission leg gives -15% annexation cost, that is beneficial. The sons of dulkadir is the largest; the other two theodoro and trebizond are one-province-minors. Before starting the calculations, turn the hisn kayfa tag into a march. This was already said before, as that one is a turbo-chad-opm, perfect as a vassal. Send officers through vassal interaction, thus they will have +20% army morale, +5% discipline; standard recipe for tags such as france and castile-spain. The descendants of saladdin, the sons of ayyubi, hisn kayfa also have +10% morale and +5% discipline, in addition to lowered core creation, as national ideas for their tag. Turbo-chad, and they will not stay as opm for much longer as your march.

The calculations can begin. The sons of dulkadir cost 146 diplo-points to annex, by 6 diplo-points per month; trebizond 86, theodoro 59, each with 4 diplo-points per month. Check the technology; diplomatic research is about to lose its condition of being ahead of time, and the reserves show more than 700 points, and gaining 13 points per month; owing to the turbo-ruler, the (+3)-advisor Sebastiano Priuli with 50% cheaper salary, and research focus on diplomacy. Therefore, the day of annexing has come. Each annexation gives -3 diplo-rep, but not accumulated, yet each time for 10 years. If it is set properly, all three can be annexed on the same date, thus shorter period of low diplomatic reputation. This is not only good for diplomatic issues; low diplo-rep also extends the time required to annex, if done as a linear procedure. So set it properly to avoid longer than usual, if monthly loss of diplo-points is affordable.

If one diplomat is sent to the sons of dulkadir on 1 July 1478, and to trebizond on 1 October 1478, then theodoro can receive the annexation order on 1 May 1479. This will ensure annexing all three on the same day, by 1 September 1480. That is it. The calendar hits the result date, supported by the calculation of the code, and just as the sons of ramazan before, the vassal friends are no more. The ottos are left with two marches, crimea and hisn kayfa, along with two allies, three guarantees, all to be vassalised when they are willing to.

[*]​

Technology has advanced, thus prepare to choose the second idea group. There is no room for another discussion point, so save this for another time. As the annexation is complete, the eyes lock on the shirvan-tag. Between the ottos and them, there remains the aq qoyunlu-tag. The sons of bayandur are ruling over the eastern Anatolia; but the perma-claims of the ottos are not there yet, as those require the full-conquest of the sons of karaman in the mission leg. But aq-tag is allied to karaman-tag, along with the great horde. And of course, turbo-chad hisn kayfa has already perma-claims on Diyarbekir and Mardin.


Your lips move forward and above, as a form of showing respectful sadness. It always becomes such silent; after the previous wars of rage, then arrives the serene regret. The archives are considered, the music is found. A farewell to former vassals. Also, a farewell for the aq qoyunlu, along with the karaman.

Spoiler: Farewell

[**]
​

[*] Still-images from The Wire, Ep. 12, Cleaning-up, S.1. (a. Idris Elba, Lawrence Gilliard Jr, Michael Kostroff)
[**] Farewell, of the album Aeon, by Angel Nation (2017)
Link to a power metal channel; official audio published by the group is available only for five countries in europe.

Edit 17.01.2023: Corrected factual, formatting, typographical mistakes. Added the missing reference. Corrected images.

 

[coz1]

Who needs vassals anyway?

 

[filcat]

Who needs vassals anyway?

Right?

RIGHT?

 

[filcat]

Eyes. Curtains. Sun, and then there is light. Clothes. Bed. Water. Bathroom. Toilet. Clean-up. Shoes. Outside. Buy. Eat up. Clouds, not moving, covering every bit of the sight. Rotation, in lightning speed. The mind ticks over time, the hands dance for work, the mouths open and close with sounds, the words echo everywhere. Outside, door, inside. Shoes. Bathroom. Clean-up. Kitchen. Prepare, chop, mix, boil, cook. Eat up. The room. The screen. Keyboard, calm clicks. Hesitate for a moment. Cursor, move. Hovering over the icon.

Stop.

This is becoming an obsession. No, not the game, but while looking for the answers, the game runs in the mind in anyway. The question is still floating in the mind, without a noise, without a presence, without a smell, without a sight, and it is tasteless. The last one has to be different, otherwise the reading may turn into either a numbing experience, else it will irritate. The shock, however its strength being small or great, either obvious else subtle, has to be used when the words become stale.


It is not fruitful to continue on the history aspect of the game for an answer to why still playing it, as one example suffices. Yet, even that example and its implications are over there, ready to open more doors to the seas to dive into. It is unreasonable to expect a software to imitate the exact and down to the smallest detail of the life happened before. Yet such a consideration cannot be used as an excuse for a game countless times to reiterate a chubby plumber to run and jump and hang around two-dimensional platforms. Now three-dimensional, though. But the point is, the ideal maximum limit is not a vague notion to be dismissed. The resolution of the details depend on the passion of the game design, and this game is passionate down to its core. That is undisputable. Of course her cousin crusader kings; she makes this game blush in the shying moment of envy. She has all the potential to leap over this game, but that is another story.

The game’s icon looks at you, and you are about to click, once again. The horizon of the ideals, a complete rendering of the history, with all its game-mechanics, can be inspirational for a remarkable simulation. This is not the case of a simplistic frowning on this game, as she fails to reach that line where the eyesight cannot reach beyond. No, that is not expected. The hopes are within reasonable context.

And of course, the game deserves much credit, far more than any others for what she is: A game that brought more questions to be asked, opening new possibilities, bringing unbelievable permutations of thoughts. Even only the quantity of its programmed tags can be given as an example, and then she soars without any rivals, outside her own family. Granted, the game has a large family, living in other galaxies of stellaris, fighting through the imperialism during the times of victoria, and dying by the bullet for a heart of iron. Her family has a long history, dating back to the imperator, in game-timeline, as that one is only a child nowadays. But this game; she covers an age, that is more or less appealing to a larger base, thus it is easier to get attracted to.

Your reason was different when you first encountered it. You still remember how you bought and installed the game. It was eons ago by now, and the title had a different number in it. The second title made the heart blast with an extraordinary sound. Then came the hunt for the series; there were only two of them, so you found the original, the initial, the first, the one that did not need a number to define. Then… then… then what happened? The earth rotated around itself, and around the sun, and the system rotated, the galaxy rotated. Organisms evolved. Different, other, new experiences were gained. The game stood still, the passion was adamant, but the time allocation had to be rationed. The love continued to burn.

Thus came the latest, and only a chance was given to it. Understandably, it would not generate the similar excitement, that was expected. But why would it not? Why could it not bring an entirely different and more… what? If the name of the hope does not exist, it cannot be used as an excuse. Nevertheless, the disappointment had arrived, and there it stayed ever since.

Minor aspects piled up, little points gathered together, tiny portions of frustration added on top of each other. Why it has to be devoid of human life, whereas the game is still about human-beings, on the global scale? This is the problem of learning history, but of simplistic approach. Following the steps of ages, but by the rulers and the entities and the armies. On 10 November 1444, the kingdom of Hungary and the sons of Osman clashed. They were led by János and Murad. And? Did they fight by themselves? Who were those, that were brought there by their monarchs? Did they all join together, willingly? How did they dress up, what did they eat, where did they come from, whom did they love, to which tunes did they dance, what dreams did they have at nights, did they look at the stars, did they crawl up into beds, did they have beds, did they sleep well, did they have nightmares, did they talk about the fantasies they had? The example collapses under its own weight at the end of the breath held as the letters of the words on the lines are typed. Come back from the rabbit hole, to the previous clashing thoughts of your mind.

Why the technology research has to be so simplistic and rigid in the game? The trade was incredibly designed, yet it was static, flowing into one direction without any chance of changing it. Yes, the map was there, yes, the hope was there, yes, the thrill was there, albeit in the form of reserved doubt. And yes, the interest for history was there, but that was never a reason. Nor you ever wanted it to be.

In order to be a simulation, it has to be close to the limits of plausible realism, but not exactly real, otherwise it cannot be a simulation, by definition. The real was never expected, because that did already happen, and the universe continues to spin, regardless of what one wants from it. The universe, the galaxies, the systems, the suns, the planets, the moons, do not care about what the living organisms think of them, if they ever think at all. The subject becomes blurred, and this is not the place to discuss it further.

However, the game is not the reality, and thus naturally it could have been, it should have been a realistic simulation by its great potential with great possibility. This did not happen, that is why the sadness of the disappointment had arrived. It never needed to follow exactly what happened in the history, but it made great and admirable and remarkable effort with some of the events for its plausibility. Yes, that is it, one of the reasons, but of sombre sighs, not for the joyful thrills. Those events remain, always for small group of tags, and they are given as advantages, and they are not available for the most. By 1445, france-tag is attacked by england-tag as an event, following the events of what the records show. The game had undergone significant design-changes, yes, but stay with the current expansion for simplicity. In the game, it is an opportunity, but for those two tags, and perhaps for their neighbours, and definitely the player benefits more, but the code needs it more than the player. Return to the point; butua or malwa-tags do not need to hear about it, nor would they care. But they do not receive such similar events, so no advantages, yet the others that do receive are always the same. The allegedly popular ones. In time, many of the tags have received more events in design, and the game improved over herself. That was still hopeful, yet the patience was already gone forever. There had been, were, and are more problems; inherent to the design.

There is the technology difference, forced due to the institutions of ages. A dying Europa still spawns Printing Press, and every other tag is still doomed to lack it; arguably acceptable, to a certain extent; all right. The technology is not researched at all, instead passively accumulated and reached and achieved; another setback in possible joy; then what does there remain to enjoy after these heavy blows? No, none but the ones to frown upon. The inherent and incomprehensible difference between the tags. This was and still is the most glaring example in the eye, receiving the lightning of agony in the mind. Why do the units of ethiopia-tag have less fighting capability than a castile-tag? A player with ethiopia-tag can easily overcome all other tags, yet still get stuck with mystifying difference for her units in comparison to others, to her disadvantage. This is not even the best example, as ethiopia-tag can be considered still as a powerful one. As sari-yogir, or pawnee, or kongo, the player can bring doom upon the code, and yet they will have statistically lower fighting capability than the group, named as western technology.

But this was a cheap shot, you do know it. This design is primarily for the code to follow it, not for the player. The intended design can be regarded as to overcome the code with less advantages than those given to the code. This is an acceptable point, but the questions line up behind the counter-attack. The trade flow, always ending in one certain node - disregard the other two end-nodes; that certain node becomes the power house of the map, even if an actual greatpower is somewhere else on the globe. Usually the player. Why is this direction set by default, as if mountains born out of an evolution of geological mechanisms of the plaques on earth? Even that is not a static, already mentioned, the continents move. What is the reason –


Then you get tired. These questions, and many more, were asked and debated and discussed, only to reach inconclusive points, but the only result at the end of day has been, was, and still is, the game is as such. You do not have the endurance to once again dive into finding why the detesting; regardless, that was not your question. Certainly there are many answers to each of the disputes, doubts, contests, either from a Watsonian perspective, or an explanation from the Doylist side, fulfiling the need for such design. You do not care any more, not about that question, nor its possible answers. At the end of the day, you have, and you did, play the game. The question now is simple, as you did not ask this before, therefore you are here, still struggling, to find the answer for why playing it, because apparently, you do not know it.


Hang on a moment. Is it – ?


What is it now you are doing? You are about to click the icon again. You are going to play it again. Your feelings are falling down forever into the unknown depths of the oblivion. So unhappy with it, yet why is the cursor over that icon, which will prompt its launcher? Is it possible, that there is no reason? Are you playing it without any reason, as if it is a motor reaction? Are you seeking an answer that does not exist?

[*]​

The hasty clicks. Play. Launcher. Play. Loading screen. Single player. Load.

---

CHAPTER V​

Hello ottos.


The last war brought riches, and with the good economy, or good-enough-for-any-tag-at-the-beginning, now it seems to go into buildings.

Already built ten of them; five each, temples and workshops. The rest is not worth to invest at this early age, except for the marketplace in the city. And...

There is only one building type to be constructed at the earliest possible date, as soon as it is affordable: Manufactories. They will not only bring monthly income, generally higher than the former two, for a long time; but they will increase the goods produced, therefore increasing the total value of the trade node of the provinces they are built. This in turn improves the income from trade, but it has to be built early to fully benefit from it. On the other hand, none of the buildings look profitable enough to consider, as their costs are high in comparison to what they provide, if that is the concern at all. Shaking head, pushing the mouse-button, ordering two manufactories to construct.

This kind of planning, such as breakthrough, or return-investment, or whatever, will make the player fall from the grace in no-time, therefore avoiding such non-sense. That fantasy parameter is not to be applied, but the monthly net income is the objective. Five temples may cost five hundred (500), and they may generate zero-comma-five (0,5) ducats per month each, for a grand total of two-comma-five (2,5) ducats. If the player falls into the delirium of wondering when the investment will be returned, the mathematics are obvious. Never. In seventeen (17) years the political map will change so drastically, the buildings that prompt such mathematics will be forgotten. In any case, this type of profit-hunting lunacy belongs to… whatever, different subject, not related to this one.

The objective is the monthly net income, and two-comma-five (2,5) ducats mean being able to build and maintain at least two (2) cannons. Carry on.

Yes. In game, the entire economy of the ming-tag can depend on its tributaries; the colonisers can earn enormous amounts from trade; and yet, even merchant republic tags under the control of a player can make any node the richest, so colonising is needless for them; besides, a mughal-tag can turn the persia node into a de facto end-node, making it the centre of the world, by just constructing manufactories - so production and trade income; gold-provinces are fraud, not the subject of this topic, therefore the economy of austria-tag depends on other means: Vassals.

A player of any tag with a vassal-set will see they are not worth the effort when the extra fees they pay to the overlord are considered; vassalisation is generally limited for five to eight of them, due to the limited diplomatic relation slots, but they still provide power in terms of military. Yet there are two tags to benefit from hoarding even more vassals, namely the vassal-swarm, thus having significant boost to net income by vassal fees. Yes, either the holy-roman-emperor tag, which is arguably austria for most of the time, and the shogun tag, which is generally ashikaga. They do not have any limit, so spend no diplomatic relation slot, for having vassals. Well, for the holy-roman-emperor, after Proclaim Erbkaisertum reform, and with only imperial vassals. That is another economy model. But moving forward, there is yet another economy in the game: War.

War is the only economy model that is credible as doomed by the game design upon players. There does not exist any other comparable option in the game, and unfortunately, its argument by depending itself on the plausibility is overwhelming, therefore you accept it. Or – you tell the argument sd off due to being tired of it. You are not happy with this design, as every other income-type passively or directly depends on this, the aspect of war. Games of war sell more; you have not encountered a game of cultivating and growing so far. Obsessive-click types do not count. It would be interesting if there had been any. Carry on, you are not the target customer at all; you are playing the game for… what, you do not know.

Enough of pseudo-economics. Though, despite its static flow, admirable mathematical model of trade, you pay your respect for it. Carry on. Check bosnia-tag, recent ally. Good enough relationship. Welcome bosnia, the new vassal.

Check shirvan-tag. Eh, they are still resisting the charms of the Offer Vassalisation button. This will not resume much longer; when the date hits September 1490, your lost diplo-rep due to annexing vassals will be restored, then it will be a different talk with the shirvan-tag.

Check oman-tag. They are there, still alive, not dragged into an ally war. Yes, that is a risk, while waiting for a tag to be vassalised, the target can be called upon to, or perhaps can itself initiate, a war. The target must be at peace. Not the overlord, though. Any tag can vassalise any other while at war.

The new provinces after the last war, along with the vassals: Trabzon, Erzurum, Erzincan, they belong to the crimea-node of trade, and they are of another superregion. This means the lands can be left to trade company. Funny. This design, which came so late, after all the turmoil of baffling trade company regions. They were on Africa continent and on China and India sub-continents of Asia; that was one of the reasons for anger, while playing any tag outside Europa. Only europa-tags could use them; hey, the game has the name in it, right? Right? Eh. The others had less chance, due to being on the same continent with the predetermined trade company regions. Then came the expansion with the name emperor, introducing trade companies finally to be established anywhere outside the sub-continent of the capital. It was admirable, but there was no patience left to share that admiration at that point. You did not even bother with whatever came after that. It is a pity, since playing as a polynesian-tag did appeal to your interest. Now comes the sorrow of lost hopes, surrounding with an ever powerful mist.

Heralds rush, the portugal-tag declares war on the morocco-tag; the new old-kid on the block aragon-tag declares on the tunis-tag. Besides, papal state calls for a crusade. A bit much, is it not, code? But it can barely handle it, so it does not spare any expenses. North Africa plan is not there yet; your eyes catch the samstkhe-tag. More provinces for crimean trade company. The war starts and ends within months. Circessia-tag is not happy, as their fellow orthodox dies out; minor setback, yet as their vassalisation is not possible until they lose their cores you hold, not problematic. Carry on.

Diet convenes, and the nobility, stylised as ümera for localisation, shares its desire for the syrian-provinces of the mamluk-tag. You start to think; is it the time? Accept the mission, at least it gives early claims. The perma-claims on the mamluk-tag are not acquired yet. A plan can still be devised; the earlier the better. Move out some of the forts; building castles. Prepare for any possibility.

Check North Africa; iberian-tags devoured large portions of their enemies. You may accelerate some plans for that part of the world. Send diplomats to the morocco-tag. The next time portugal-tag hits, let the code see what happens.

Perhaps it is now ideal to consider the ideas to better ideation (yet another smooth one, filcat. You are killing it. Yeah.). So the ideas – Hang on.

Hang on.


This sound.


You have not heard this sound for years. Only when you wanted it. Only when you planned for it. Only when you asked for it. With your actual plans, the code would not, the code could not do it. It cannot be. Is it real?


Yes, it is.


Your face stretches with the ever-joyful smile. Your eyes are shining, you can see the reflection even through the dull screen that cannot reflect. Such enthusiasm was not there at all, since… since… it has been years, you have not been thrilled as such.


Incredible. You are incredibly happy. Maybe, the code is alive, functioning, calculating. Is it? Your sitting position is adjusting, your head leans forward, your hands get ready on keyboard and mouse. You cannot believe the delightful moment of hearing that sound, and the reaction it causes on you.


Your own calculations run through the cells, carrying the information packages from one neuron to another; the mind is roaring with the corks rotating. You will investigate what may have caused it later; your moves were safe, dull, ordinary, ever-overpowering. Regardless, the investigation will be done much later, as this may take some time.


Austria-hungary-tag declares war.


Calling for poland-tag.


Calling for all its allies.



Calling for all, to a conquest-cb, on you.

The power of the music has already surrounded your words, as the surprise forges the dreams of hope, lost long ago.

Spoiler: Dreams of hope

[**]​

Yes. This will take a bit more than usual.




[*] Still-images from Lost, S.1, Ep. 5, The White Rabbit (a. Matthew Fox, Terry O'Quinn)
[**] In a Skyforged Dream, from the album Extreme Power Metal, by DragonForce, 2019
Audio by the official account of the band is also available, but it is not accessible outside most of europe.

Edit 22.10.2023: Corrected factual, formatting, grammatical, semantic, typographical, notation mistakes, and missing words.

 

[filcat]

The grey blanket preventing the rays of photons over wavelengths is certainly smaller in mass, so the shining is brighter in the eyes than before.


The trap of the question is another certainty, as the why will lead the answers to fall into the realm of fantasy. That is not the time the word fantasy holds a meaning that is appealing. The why can blur the curiosity. Any explanation it can give will stretch the reality thin, force it into meaningless cacophony, make the mind lazy. The how, which is the only reliable source of responding to the curiosity, is the only tool available for discovering the mechanisms behind the phenomena, so the unnecessary mystifying replies can be diminished into nullity, bringing the knowledge from the material into the level of the mind to name it, to understand it, and then to use it, if there is the need; thus the how annuls any reason for the why to exist.

---

The methodology starts with the simple step; a question, or many of them. The driving force, the energising fuel, the underlying cause. Models can be proposed to make a meaning out of the problem at hand; hypothesise. The claims are the backbones of the steps to follow in order to find, to answer, to understand. Naturally they may depend on other previous assumptions or the ones devised for the problem of the moment. Based on claims and assumptions, tools are ready for tests. Testing, experimenting, trying, scrutinising. Do the tests bring an answer? When it is a gigantic no, then try again, but with different parameters. When the amount of failures is piling up, then the time for scrutinising the claims and the assumptions comes. Maybe the approach of the question itself is wrong in that regard. Besides, the answer of no is another door for wonders: This is how it proceeds, the methodology. The answer of no, as well as the yes, both do the similar job. Either the claim is proven, or the hypothesis fails, and both mean a knowledge to be shared. Next group will try another claim, as the previous claim is reported to be a failure. This is the methodology.

What happens when the answers satisfy the claims in a positive manner? Then the theory comes at the stage. Yes. A theory is not a word to be wasted in false semantics of well in theory it may work, but in practice it is different, etc. No, that sentence has no meaning, as the words are used in absolute false sense of their existence. A theory explains all the mechanisms of a claim, which is a hypothesis. After the theory is established, the round of laws begins. That is how the first law of thermodynamics, second law of nature, so motion, law of electromagnetic force come into effect, and the list is not exhaustive, and the list is beautiful. A theory is not an ethereal stream of empty dreams, but an explanation that can be proven by multiple, independent, and repeated attempts. That is how a rocket is able to propel above atmosphere and into inner space and beyond. That is how an aeroplane carrying tens or hundreds flies through the atmosphere at an altitude above the ground. It is called the theory of flight. The grouping of the theory and the practice, on the other hand, is a concept that can be only applied in medical disciplines, and that is also outside of the failing assumptions of the semantics used in everyday colloquialisms. They are not contradicting notions in medicine, but complementing each other. For the other disciplines, it is a theory and an application, and again, they follow, bind, complete each other, as application is used in similar manner to practice.

The process of assumptions, postulates, hypotheses, tests, theories, and laws may also give a wrong idea of the last one in the entry. The laws are not unchangeable, constant, forever steady results, but they evolve, are falsified, are re-questioned, are re-tested, are re-evaluated facts. The law is an explanation of the theory in a narrowed control volume, whereas the theory is the one explaining the entire mechanism. This is the process.

***​

In the most simplistic terms, that is how, when the century was seventeen in the common era, Sir Isaac Newton proposed the lift to be proportional to the square of the angle of attack of a plate facing the incoming air, the square of its velocity, and the surface of that plate. His model leads to a calculation of thousand (1000) square-meters of wing surface area for a flying object with a weight of about hundred (100) kilograms, assuming ten (10) metres per second as gravitational acceleration, and that object can move in thirty-six (36) kilometres per hour. If the square of the angle of attack of that plate is taken as the focus of a relation, then according to that model it is directly proportional to the lift force, and inversely related to the surface area times the square of the velocity. This parameter, square of the angle of attack, then can be labelled as the coefficient of the lift. This, lift coefficient being quadratically related to angle of attack, renders any application of flight impossible, therefore it could not explain the flight.

Well, he did not have the necessary tools for advanced tests in that age of the earth rotating around the sun.

***​

The empirical data with the paragliding tests came from Otto Lilienthal, but the century was nineteen in the common era. He also demonstrated that it is possible to control an aeroplane with fixed wings by changing the centre of gravity, so for paragliding, through body motions, effectively opening further possibilities of flight dynamics. He dedicated his life for the flight, for the process, for the future of the humankind, and he shared his results as he never stopped asking questions, testing, and publishing, until he crashed on ground in his last paragliding test.

Those data inspired more questions, but the calculations for an effective lifting body were already under progress with increased curiosity by that age. Martin Kutta and Nikolai Yegorovich Zhukowski proposed another model, one that relates the force of the lift per unit length of a body to the density of the air, the velocity of the air – or the velocity of the body, and the circulation of the air around that body. The Kutta-Zhukowski theorem is able in explaining the unit-force based on this circulation, which is the integral of velocity vector field around a closed contour, or a curve. The integral of this unit-force over entire wing gives the total lift force. In the end, it was demonstrated that the lift coefficient is linearly related to the angle of attack, not quadratically, and times two (2) and π, as the calculations involved integration over complex numbers.

The equation depends on many assumptions, as applicable only for inviscid flow, but still accurate for real viscous yet steady flows, later it was shown, as more advanced approaches were applied for better details, and more advanced tools of testing became available, both intrusive and non-intrusive. Current acceptable model is the lifting-line theory of lift, and that has another story. But the story at hand, they made an impact on anyone, who read those results.


Two bicycle makers in 17 December 1903 demonstrated that it is possible to fly a body, which is heavier than air, employing fixed wings, using an internal combustion engine, and controllable for a sustainable flight. While carrying a human-being.

Their example was only for one passenger, which was the pilot, Orville Wright. The next flights were consecutively performed by him and Wilbur Wright. How they did it, was obvious, because they were curious, but they knew they lacked the formal education, yet they did not boast about their deficiency in that regard, but read the scientific publications to remedy it. They read every work Lilienthal published, thus they learnt what a lift coefficient was, how the lift force could be calculated, what size of wing they would require. Among with many other works. What level of power they would need, therefore what size the engine should be, how long the runway had to be, how they could control the aeroplane.

***​

The point is, even if the lift model of Newton failed, his tools of calculus, as well as laws of motion, are still in use, as they are proven in every case encountered so far. When the theory of motion failed for mechanics of much smaller sizes, namely the quantum, the failure did not stop the questions. It opened more doors to other questions, and currently theory of matter waves using Schrödinger’s equations is applicable for a description of the quantum mechanics, and leading to Higgs mechanism for mass generation. It was not even seen as failure at all, as the everyday colloquialism introduces garbage phrases such as scientists in shock, they cannot explain this, theory fails, read-or-click to learn what it is, etc. Claiming that Newton was wrong as a general argument is meaningless, just as saying Daniel Bernoulli was not right about the equation is hollow argument, or any other example, that can extend the list into infinity. Bernoulli equation, or the principle, is still in use, and it is an extraordinarily useful tool. That false relation of lift force did not stop the process, no, that is not a failure or collapse of theories or reason to absurdly abandoning the process; this is exactly what the process is: Asking questions. Therefore it proceeded through ages, and it was corrected and improved and explained with better answers as the technology advanced, and advancing again owing to those proposed and newly devised theories.

***​

What you are doing right now is, of course, procrastinating. It is obvious, as the question of why fails to provide any credible answer, and the question of how is infinitely comfortable, but the question in focus is a human behaviour. The question of how overpowers the question of why, but considering the motion, the action, the choices of the organisms, the why is an applicable linguistic tool to use in this case.

Why you are playing this game, it is still unclear.

Only a side-route, a rouse, a detour, as none of the answers provided a satisfactory explanation so far. The basis arguments that were quickly overlooked? They are the explanations for writing, not playing, used as assumptions to define the control volume of the problem. The map? Null argument, it is by default loved, regardless of the game. The nostalgic hope for lost love? Irrelevant, as it is still played in the mind even if the software is not running. The game itself? Not acceptable, since the strategic choices quickly diminish in the arcade style of its design. The history aspect of the game? Not applicable, the game is limited in its depiction, and its simulation aspect does not exist. Besides, its own direction is aimless, varying violently between a real-simulation and a realism-simulation with historical basis; occasionally it falls into arcade-absurdities. Then there remains the hatred for the game? At this point it is sufficient to say that the word is an exaggerated form of agitation, as the feelings are under investigation.

Therefore you try to change the question, as well as the direction of the approach, because you were about to conclude with that there is no reason at all for playing this game. It is just that you want to play this game. A futile, an empty, a blank answer.

---

Then assume that you had, have, will have a reason to play this game. Then what will happen when you figure out what it is? Will it disappoint you further? Will it make you accept the fact, if it is a reasonable fact at all? Or will it be an answer that defies your hatred? Do you actually hate this game?

These are for the unknown future when an answer can be devised. Now with the new approach, you can go back in the steps to open further fronts to battle with the question.


Enough of this loitering. The cursor is already hovering over the icon. Be done with it.


Click-click. Wait a second. Click. Wait a couple of seconds. Click. Wait a couple more seconds. Click. Click.

---

CHAPTER VI​

Hello ottos.


The initial thrill has been brought under control, after the first moves of the war.


Your initial reaction, after enjoying the delight of the surprise move of the code, was advancing the military research. There is no equivalent to technology as a comparison for military might in the design of the game. None of the idea sets, none of the advisors, and certainly no amount of army size can overcome the advantages that the technology can provide. Therefore it is the certain move the player can safely make, as soon as the military research is filled up, during a war. The severity of the war situation can alter the decision, but it is obvious that the code made a counter-move, thus it forces the player to advance in technology, even if it is three (3) years ahead of time.

Only after the technology advancement, conscripting janissaries is the logical next step. It is generally pointless to recruit troops during a war, as it prematurely drains the manpower for army; but it is the ottos, therefore the Janissary units, which can be conscripted right away, without spending manpower. Only few tags have such an advantage; muscovy-russia tag or any russian-principality-tag, veche republic tags, and some of the hordes that can call Banner units, but that will consume a lowered amount of manpower.

A reasonable amount of military points was spent for the jannisaries, but you keep those points at a good enough level. During a war, especially after cannons, one should always stock up military points, to be used for barraging in sieges, and hiring generals. Yes, the fighting capability of the game is low, thus it creates cheap problems to the player. Your turbo-general can suddenly go into the chronic disease of never-breathing again (bravo, filcat, so smooth, as if an ice. Freezing here), especially just as the move-command is employed, and the armies are clashing. Few times the generals may die within the shock phase of the fight, which is, arguably acceptable. Other times, the code will use all its powers, not to fight, but to annoy the player.


Few events happened, giving you few advantages. Founding the Enderun Academy was a lucky strike, giving a small increase in army professionality, and 2,5% additional discipline.

Another event, related to estates, with the name An Army Career, gives additional army tradition, which is very useful, in order to have improved pips for generals, as well as shorter siege times.

You checked the advisors, and army reformer Süleyman Gümülçineli was a good enough choice, providing +10% army morale.

All was set, and you entered the arena. Naturally, as you are the human-player, the code has little chance. As a turbo-tag, the code has miserable chances. But you are the otto-tag; thus, the code has no chance.


Yes, and as the battles raged, the initial thrill saturated. This is a suitable moment for an analysis of the situation.

The war was unexpected, this must be admitted. In this regard, it is certainly a failure of your own calculations, due to being the player of a turbo-tag, and out of them, the otto-tag. The war declaration upon you was not a controlled, expected, deliberate move, but a genuine surprise that hunted you down. Therefore the moves prior to the war have to be investigated, in order to understand what has caused this.

A list of possible reasons has to be compiled:

1. Restrained playstyle
2. Restrained advancement in technology
3. Vassal annexation

The first should explain the entire argument, as it makes the player to keep own overwhelming power at bay. The code will not consider this as a show of force, as it linearly proceeds through its calculations, without ever noticing what the player does or wants or feels. On the contrary, it will see it as a weakness as soon as it surpasses the player in terms of army force size, currently recruited-active army, and the technology level. Your forces were less in numbers than the attacking alliance of austria-tag, including its personal union hungary-tag, and its allies: Poland-tag, with its pu-lithuania-tag, its vassal danzig-tag; ingolstadt-tag, and its pu-landshut-tag.

The austria-tag also advanced in military technology of 8 earlier than you, as the second point. You kept your monarch points safe to wait for three (3) years of research, as it was not beneficial to advance early, since not being the first, it would not bring any bonus-innovativeness gain. This is one of the misty points of the game; innovativeness gain.

When the neighbours are advancing in tech earlier than the tag, the one lacking in tech will receive a small amount of technology cost reduction. This is understandable. However, when a tag advances first on the globe, or within the same year of another tag researching that technology, that inno-bonus is gained. The mystic part comes with the latter condition: Not only that is a bit confusing, but what happens when the tag is somewhere else on the globe that is not yet discovered, that is still unanswered, even if the code is open to read, and even if has been years that the mechanic was first introduced. The subject is still confusing, but left such questions to rot in their own mess, since not caring about it any more.

In any case, when a tag has a turbo-ruler, meaning 13-monarch or with more total monarch points, the technology will not be a serious problem at all, as innovativeness will be gained by first advancing that tech. Besides, being ahead of time also increases the inno-level of a tag, with very small increments, over time; but the opposite condition will cause it to be lost, double the amount of gain.

Therefore you kept your military points in the bank, and minded your own business. The austria-tag made a move in the technology, therefore checked one more condition for its calculation to initiate an attack.

The third part, ah, vassals. Yes, that is the main reason. After annexing, you were left with two marches. The only allies were shirvan-, oman-, and bosnia-tags. After the previous wars, you diplo-vassalised bosnia-tag, but still did not increase your number of allies nor vassals; you were waiting. That is the main cause, as the code directly calculated this, realised the difference in military force limit, for extended time enough to make its move. Vassals do not only pay fees and vassal-code-armies for the player. Any subject, that is not a tributary, nor a personal union, will provide an actual increase in force limit to the overlord. This is one of the main reasons to have vassals. Allies do not provide such benefits. Besides, an ally can, and will, betray. Vassals in this game, do not have such an interaction, as long as their liberty desire levels are below 50%. Yes, as if that can be any concern for a turbo-tag player, and the player is the ottos. So betrayal from vassals will never happen at this point of the game.

In time, the development level of the vassals will improve, as the code manages its resources for that, and thus even relatively small subjects will have increased liberty desire. Add this to ruling over multiple vassals, then it may require some attention. Maybe. But never during the first age, and such concerns will go away forever when the last age of the game arrives, that is, Age of Revolutions. Yes, ridiculously, age abilities of that era will wipe out any liberty desire. That is, of course, if any run makes its way to that age. That is a subject to be looked upon, much, much later.



The conclusion is that yes, the code is alive, calculating, functioning properly but within its own limitations as have been mentioned so far, up to this point. The actual reasons for the attack of the austria-hungary-tag were already given, and their summary is that it is your own fault, as you waited too long to finish it.

It is certainly a welcome-fault in this regard, as the surprise genuinely caught your interest, increased your senses, and boosted your excitement. You do know that, had it been another tag, such a mistake would be detrimental for the run. But, you are the ottos in this run.


There is no hope for the code, but only the gates of hades.

And music.

Spoiler: Welcome to the gates of hades, code

[*]
​

[*] Tempest of Blades, bonus track of the album Circus of Doom, 12'' Vinyl release, by Battle Beast, 2022

Edit 03.07.2023: Corrected format, grammatical, typographical mistakes. Adjusted image sizes. Added missing threadmark label.

 

[coz1]

Looks like you're doing well after the (perhaps not altogether) surprising DoW by Austria.

 

[filcat]

Looks like you're doing well after the (perhaps not altogether) surprising DoW by Austria.

Well, of course.

But that is a modest understatement, considering the code is attacking a human-player, and the tag in control is... ottos.

 

[filcat]

It was clear at one unit of time, then it was again the gathering of the water molecules, which can be explained by the adiabatic cooling. The beautiful word in the first place, adiabatic stands with the meaning there, signifying the process of the ideal, in which no heat exchange occurs, yet applicable with reasonable assumptions in great effect for the conditions of the real. The cooling causes the condensation, the amorphous shapes of cumuli cover the skies in the end. They block the rays of the light for the point of view, at the time on that latitude and longitude of the earth facing the sun. The day may not shine the hope radiantly upon the ones expecting it, yet the light travels through the atmosphere, diffused through the reflections over the molecules of the air.

---

Assuming the existence of the unknown in a problem is not a unique process, but rather a common methodology. When the mathematics is considered, such a methodology is ordinary as a tool among many others.

The first, the quickest, the clearest example comes with the existence of the square operator, or rather the inverse of it, the square root. It does not require intricate details of the number theory to explain this example, such as the Erdős-proof for the Bertrand’s postulate, a more elegant way than the one of Chebyshev. No, the basics will suffice. Simple does not hold a pejorative meaning when the subject involves scientific process.

Assuming a set of real numbers, which can be considered as points on an infinite line, including all types of rational and irrational numbers, the zero number indicates the basis of change in the direction, reflected as positive and negative numbers. Accelerating the definition to reach the example; the square of a positive number is another positive number, an integer, thus being a positive integer, a member of natural number subset, and just as that one, the square of a negative number, so not a natural number, but a negative integer, is again another positive number, a positive integer. The integer numbers constitute only a subset of the rational numbers, and that is also a subset of the real numbers. From real to rational to integer to natural to zero, one, prime, composite numbers. The list of beauty.

The inverse of this square operator, the square root; when this operator is applied on a positive real number, the result can be either a real positive or a real negative number. Then remains the question: What is the square root of a negative real number? The answer is, none, as that does not exist by definition. Then what is there to do when such a process is encountered?

Assume a result.

Complex numbers, which is the superset of the real numbers, are achieved with this assumption.

In order to provide a specific example, the negative integer -1 can be considered. The square of (-1), and that of (+1), is (+1); so (+1)^2=(-1)^2=(+1). The square root of (+1) is either (+1) or (-1), so (+1)^1/2=(+1)OR(-1). The square root of (-1) does not exist in the set of real numbers. Therefore, assume the result, as (i). This result can be used in the square operator as (i)^2=(-1). Consequently, (-i)^2=((-1)^2).((i)^2)=(-1).

Yes, the notation is given as (i), indicating that as an imaginary number. The square root of (-1) does not exist in the set of real numbers, but it does exist in the superset of it, the complex numbers. They have two parts: A real number, and an imaginary number. For the case of square root of (-1), it is (0+i), or (0-i), so the real part is zero, the imaginary is (i).

So… what?

Well, Jean-Robert Argand proposed to express the complex numbers on a plane, assuming it as number with a direction, in the beginning of the century that was nineteenth in common era. Thus became the definition of complex numbers: A vector. Defining on a plane naturally drew the attention on it to be expressed in Cartesian coordinates. By that time, it was already common in mathematics, as Jacob Bernoulli had studied the limit of the infinite series of (1+1/n)^n long before, reaching a constant. Leonhard Euler termed the constant number as (e), which is (2,78…). It was the age in the wake of John Napier’s Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio – The Wonderful Canon Description of Logarithms. The number (e=2,78…) is the base of this logarithm operator, leading to the definition of natural logarithm.

Enter the polar coordinates. As the complex numbers are defined as vectors, then they can be expressed in polar coordinates, too. If the point of a complex number in Cartesian coordinates, (z)=(x+(i).(y)), is expressed on the complex plane, with the vector pointing from origin to the point (z), then there is the angle, expressed as (φ), the argument. The length of the vector is (r), the modulus. This means, the trigonometry can be employed. For the polar coordinates, Euler devised the formula by expanding the Taylor series over sinus and cosinus. So, with the Euler’s formula, the complex number can be expressed in polar coordinates as (z)=(r).(cos(φ)+(i).sin(φ)), thus (z)=(r).(e)^((i).(φ)).

So, again. What does this provide?

Oh.

Chair of mathematics for complex numbers. Complex algebra. Mathematics for waves. For electricity. For alternating currents – thank you again Nikola Tesla. For electronics. For circuit-boards. For processors. For computers. In that space, software and codes. In the end, computer games. That is how you are able to play this game.

---

Yet, the question is that why you are playing this game. The mathematical approaches cannot be applied on human behaviour, as the human-beings are highly non-linear functions, operating in chaotic systems, showing great volatility in their results. That is not the intention at all, as it would be silly.

But similar methodology as the complex algebra is considered, so to be applied for the problem of finding a reason for playing this game. A modestly abstract analogy. Assuming there is a reason – or maybe there are multiple of them – to play this game. You leave the limits of the control volume you devised as they are, so you rewound only up to the problem of wanting or not.

The assumption merely saves the process from falling into the trap of resorting to banal explanations. You play this game as you want to, etc. Well, you said you do not want to play this game at the beginning, yet it is clear by observing the empirical data up to this point, of course you want to play this game, do you not? With hate or love, that is not clear, but you already installed it, started it, and even played it so far. That is a null statement in this problem. But then, why do you want to, and specifically, why this game?


The map?

But that was discarded, was it not? It occurred first as the reason of love. It was given as the greatest one among other explanations, it then became unsatisfactory. It was further elaborated as an appreciation of the geography that is depicted digitally, yet it was labelled as the charming art that pleases the mind but by default and regardless of the game, thus it was negated into null argument, completely detached from questioning the reason for playing the game.

The love for maps in this quest certainly underwent quite the adventure, judging by the above summary. Why? The maps are attractive, colourful, or verbal, as they mirror the eyes of those that drew them in the past. From the initial attempts that changed the centre according to the point of perspective, to the ones generated by satellite imaging techniques. The map, the projection, the scale, the type, this is what you love. Using that word does not even bother you, you do not even calm the mind by humble limits of using the word like, the meaning exactly defines the feeling you have. It is love, when the maps are considered.

But the map of this game? Smart, neat, tidy. It does certainly awaken the first reaction, as the resolution is far superior to whatever examples there are as comparisons. Excluding the cousins of this game, of course. But you do remember those other examples since the early days of computer games. Giant squares, vector-renderings, interesting pseudo-isometric views, then full-isometric yet unrealistic edges, lines, polygons, thus hexagons, and there were some that never had maps. Borders dividing entire continents into hilariously low number of units, implausible, unattractive, uninteresting. Then this game, and her cousins. It was shown that it is possible to display the entire scope of the globe, but with greater resolution. Granted, crusader kings focused on the world excluding a large part of it, but its context supports this decision, as there was not enough interaction in the history between the continents separated by the oceans. However, this never satisfied as an answer for excluding the enormous part of Asia, despite the relevance. A minor but significant problem of crusader kings, but she is not the subject of this endeavour.

And this game, and the map. Complete globe. Pseudo-Mercator projection, with acceptable modifications, but barely. Problematic sides have already started to show themselves. But this is not a critical point to focus, not yet. Scaling, by swift zoom function. This is beautiful.

Then come the borders. World does not have borders, but the political construct forces those. The borders depicted in the game, they are acceptable, as a general overview. There are certainly inconsistent parts, and they are hunted down as they are found and pointed out.

The geography. It is beautiful to see the details of the mountains and the lakes, the rivers and the forests. But then, there are impassable zones. Now the serious problems begin. The technical reasons start to ponder, and the abstract constraints are applied to economise the resolution of available space. That is the only reason to view such artificial limits. All right, it may be seen as redundant to open the desert of Sahara to roam it, yet it does not stop there. Still no credible explanation exists to have central and south Africa inaccessible as such. Then the great plains of America is free to walk through by the colonisers, whereas that part could not be touched by them until the nineteenth century of common era. And the forests of Europa. There they are, wide open, accessible, unconstrained. It should not be possible for a mass of tens of thousands to pass through the Black Forest in southern Germany. Yet, it is there, and the north of Siberia is off-limits.

All right, so far, some inconsistencies. Simplifications on the map; perhaps reasonable from the design-perspective. Maybe.


Before clicking the icon twice, you hesitate, as the actual issues emerge in the mind. You do remember them. Even in this quest as you played, you have already encountered those. Now you are questioning the map, as it is tied to every other aspect of the game.


You hear the double-click, and the after-clicks follow them quickly, as if phantom-reactions of your fingers, while you dive into the sea of issues in your mind; those you have been questioning since the first time you bought, installed, and played the game, years ago. You remember. The screen appears, and you load the game.

---

CHAPTER VII​

Hello ottos.

Enough of this war. The surge of the excitement by the surprise that was only due to player-mistake; it diminishes after a couple of years of the game-run.



The reasons for such a fall in the delight of the thrill are readily looking at you, because of the choices made by the code. The code does not consider the map. For the code, there is no map. That is your fault again, assuming the code could see the map as you do.

The code is not the human-player, it does not know what rivers, mountains, deserts, plains, peninsulas, islands, straits, passes are. It only processes numbers, and they are elements in an adjacency matrix to be used in calculations for the code, and no other meaning they can have for it. Needless to say, the calculations of the code depend on those numbers, modelling the map for its process.

The code does not consider it absurd to move its units from Iberia to Kamchatka. If it is affordable, and with the low simulation elements of the model, yes it is, then the code executes the action. A human-player can do it too, but there is another parameter, which the code will always have, forever, in infinite reserves, never-to-be-exhausted: The patience. A human-player does not have the patience to move units in order to traverse entire continents just to fight the units of the code.


You may have caused the attack by your mistake, as you have not played the game for a very long time. Reactions slow down, reflexes accumulate rust, memories of timings slip away. But repeated experience increases the senses, the memory packages of saved-information recur, practices that had become reflex-habits come back, as you play again. The surprise attack was none other than a correct calculation of the code, triggered by your own delay.

And there is no need to panic while playing the otto-tag. It was said before; the only reason for a run with the otto-tag is to have a calm, relaxed, smooth experience. All is under the control of the player, as soon as the first unpause is initiated, while playing as the otto-tag. Only few tags have such luxury; a player has to give extra-effort to collapse as the ming-tag. The usual line-up, the france-, the england-, the castile-, the muscovy-, the mamluks-, and even the portugal-tag; they have no issues in playing without caring. The england-france tags have the predetermined event-war, then it will be the ever-reign of the player. The austria-tag can be added to the list, but that has the emperor-election risk along its course. The ottos? No risk, none, nought.

Well, the only problem is the saturation level of a run. The player with the otto-tag will reach that point in lightning speed, if the playstyle is hyper-aggressive in terms of conquests and technology advancement. Once that point is reached, there remains no objective to play, as the non-existing simulation dies away, invalidating the code, putting it out-of-action. It is therefore the only objective, to keep the code alive, calculating, functioning, while playing a turbo-tag, and especially as the ottos.



The initial surge of excitement by the surprise burns out because of itself, so explained above. The code-austria already lost its imperial election to the code-bohemia. This drives the code to frenzy-level, acting as insanity-wolf-meme, running rabid from one war to another, until it exhausts itself. It is a pity that it chose the player-ottos as its target. Pity, as this means the austria-tag will lose its power to be considered as an eligible rival for the player-ottos, after the war.


Yes, after the war, as there is only one conclusion for the code in that: Defeat. Utter, complete, absolute defeat.

Not only because of the war being against the player, not only because the player is the ottos, not only because the incapability of the code in waging wars.

The war was started by austria-hungary tag, and it called its allies to arms. The allies, poland-lithuania-danzig and ingolstadt-landshut tags. Their war effort focuses on around the war objective, as much as the code can manage to calculate it, but unfortunately, significant amount of their armies rushes towards the outer edges of the target. In the case of player-ottos, that is crimea and caucasus. This is the modus operandi of the code, wasting every resource for no apparent gain. As the player hunts them down, the warscore keeps up piling for the player. As the player begins to occupy the attacking party – also, it does not matter for aggression or defensive wars – the war exhaustion piles up for the code.

Then, the opportunists arrive at the scene.

In this case, of course the bohemia-tag, berserking on the poland-lithuania-tag. The reason of the code is simple: At one point, the austria-tag will not be able to answer the defensive call-to-arms of its allies, so betrayals follow up. The defeat by the player will ruin the economy of the code, and not to mention the loss of provinces, thus what remains in the aftermath is a formerly powerful tag, losing all its potential, leaving its allies alone, being pushed to the brink of collapse.

And it is the ottos, so no cheap effort by the code can prevent it. It is inevitable, even if the code triggers a pretender-event for the player-ottos, rising in the province of Korinth. Even if the code makes some reasonable panic-choices, such as hiring condottieri from the burgundy-tag.

Therefore, utter, complete, absolute defeat of the code.

The victory of the human-player is inevitable, in most cases. For a turbo-tag player, there is no doubt of it for almost all scenarios. But the player is the otto-tag.


The drums are rolling, the guitars are screaming, the violin is crying, but the power of the beats cannot hide the melancholy, as the code is falling forever.

Spoiler: Dawn is nigh

[*]
​

[*] Dawn of Victory, from the album with the same name, by Rhapsody of Fire (2000)

Edit 02.07.2022: Corrected typographical, formatting, grammatical, lexical mistakes. Rearranged the image-matrix. Corrected mathematical error.

 

[HistoryDude]

The Ottomans are doing extraordinarily well.

I think that you can turn lucky nations (nations that historically did well) on and off when you start a game...

It is possible to play the game to write the AAR...

 

[coz1]

Nice victory. Is Bosnia a vassal?