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Three Countries One Goal

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Yikes, Lithuania... unfortunately, the AI is terrible at crushing rebels. Hopefully Sicily can expand it's hold in Turkey next turn, or give military access (perhaps to Candar or the Mamluks) and let them handle your rebels in the area... assuming you can get relations up. If not, then I'm afraid I don't expect Karaman to last long.

Good update, and good luck. Hopefully Japan is still going strong, I think they'll have a real advantage over the other two nations.
 
Watching the AI implode in your absence should be quite amusing (and vexing).
 
Good. Maybe Samogitia=Crimea?
 
I'm wondereing if the island of Sicily will defect to Sicily. Now, i am all agog wondering what the ai has made of Japan. Hopefully, it has not done something stupid and lost half its territory to Ming China. A nice ai would have continued to chew up Brunei and her allies.
 
J Passepartout - Yes I’m in the dark as to what’s happening to my two competitors. Not sure if that’s a bad or good thing. ;)

Chief Ragusa - An interesting idea about Lithuania. But what would be the odds of them annexing me if I did that? I don’t know how much I affect the AI’s long term strategy by moving sliders and picking National Ideas. Does it change or not will hopefully be clearer later in the game. My instincts say that they will stay on whatever course that started on.

Duke of Wellington - In EU2 the AI did for the most part as well as me. In fact if I remember correctly the Mameluk’s AI at one point had added several provinces to my zero additions. A very humbling experence.

RedBaron1918 - You could just play two countries or you could lessen the time between switching countries to lets say five years. It might be interesting to play several countries in the HRE all competing against each other and see what happens. :eek: :D

Kanil - It was a long shot for Sicily taking Karaman and keeping it but I’m hoping that the ottomans and others in the area are distracted enough to leave it alone. If its there when I get back then I will try to keep agressively expanding into the Middle East.

Fulcrumvale - It can, shall we say, be a little frustrating to see what’s happening when your away from a country. I think one of the reason I have less hair is because of this playing style. :D

Billy bob - Nope Samogitia doesn’t equal Crimea but it’s funny you should mention it. But it would be getting ahead of myself if I say anything more. ;)

JaxomCA - That’s what worries me. Will the AI be able to ferry men to Karaman if there’s a need? Time will tell.

Chief Ragusa - Well sence you asked I guess I’ll post the next segment

Joe
 
Japan 1483

I eagerly and quickly look to see if Japan managed to hold on to Brunei. Cool they did Not that I was worried, not me.
JapanBrunei1483.jpg





Next stop is Japan itself and at first glance things look okay. There are a couple of pirates off the Japanese coast but Japan is still all there in one piece. Then I notice that the AI is building ships like mad. What’s going on here? Wait a minute where’s the fleet of 20 ships that I left with Japan? There’s only one left? Well there is also a ghost fleet of zero ships but they soon disappear so they don’t count. What the hell has happened here?
Japan1483start.jpg





I open the overview window and see the answer to my question.
Japanoverview1483.jpg

Damn the AI was in a war with Korea and MING My guess is that Ming is allied with Korea and is more than willing to join them when Korea DOW’d Japan. Okay so odds are Korea is going to DOW me again so I need to prepare for the coming war. What’s my strategy going to be? I can’t match them in manpower so I’m going to have to rely on my fleet to win the war or at least fight to a draw. So as soon as I can I start building galleys and maxing my army up to my manpower limit. I need enough men to destroy any armies that land in Japan as soon as I can because most of my provinces are unfortified and I don’t want any enemy armies running around creating havoc with my economy by capturing provinces.

I also notice that the AI has converted the northernmost Island of Japan and has sent missionaries to the two provinces in Brunei. Cool. So my basic plan for this turn is to prepare for the coming war. It should be only a couple of years away and even if Korea doesn’t DOW me I want to wait until the missionaries succeed or fail in Brunei before I try to do anything.




Japan likes trade investment but has only one merchant in a COT. Should I continue this policy? I think not
Japan1483orginalsliders.jpg





So I change the sliders and push production to the limit.
Japan1483changedsliders.jpg





I decide to send my lone ship around to check out the opposition and at first I find Korean and Ming fleets of anywhere from 1 to 5 ships. Then off the Southern coast of Ming I run into a Ming fleet of 32 ships. If I remember correctly I was having a sip of nectar at the time and almost swallowed an ice cube when I saw that fleet. Needless to say I started building even more galleys.

The truce between Korea and Japan ends and I’ve got my navy up to 14 ships and I’m still building galleys. My army is just about ready and my manpower pool is almost up to max. I have 5,000 men in Brunei and they are going to have to hold off whatever is thrown their way because I can’t risk reinforcing them at the Japanese homeland’s expense.
Japantruceended1485.jpg





The Kutei conversions succeeds but Banjarmasin fails. I’m going to leave it up to the AI to convert provinces. I have a better used of my time and money right now.
Japanconverson1485.jpg





I move toward free subjects again. I’ve got to get off this Free Subjects merry-go-round
japansliders1487.jpg






Finally in 1487 Korea declares war but I’m ready. The Ming join them as does Manchu. Ming assumes leadership of the alliance against me while I stand alone. Its always sounded kind of brave and romantic whenever I’ve read that quote “I stand alone” but now that it’s me standing out here all alone in the cold almost naked with just a 20 ship fig leaf covering my, my, well lets not go there.
JapanWar1487.jpg
 
Almost immediately I start receiving small Korean and Ming invasion forces numbering one to two thousand men. My armies in Japan are easily able to handle these battles. While Korea continues to peck away at me the Ming shift their attention South to Brunei and start landing armies on the island. My army there is able to route the invaders but then has to chase them back and forth all the while more landings at taking place. I take chance and move me fleet South and find and sink a Ming fleet of four cogs. That ends the invasion threat to Brunei but it is becoming more difficult for my land forces to finish off the invaders. In fact I have to stop chasing them and recover morale more and more often.

Meanwhile I move my fleet back to Japan and there off the coast of Shikoku in the Setto Inland Sea the pivotal sea battle takes place. My fleet is now up to 22 ships and the main Ming fleet of 35 ships shows up looking for a fight. I admit that my first instinct is to run away as fast as my paddle can carry me because the Ming fleet has a leader and I don’t and there’s something about being severely outnumbered that scares the crap out of me. But then I thought, what the hell did I build all of these ships for if not to fight? There was also the fact that if I retreated I’d immediately lose some ships even without fighting so what the hell I let the battle continue. At first it looked bad then it looked worst and then, if I’m not a monkey’s uncle, a miracle happened. I actually won the battle The Ming lost 16 ships and I lost 10 but I WON Normally this would call for the wooky-wooky dance of victory but it scares the crap out of my cats whenever I do it so I have to be really pissed off at them before I’ll strut my stuff and right now were actually getting along. So I take another sip of nectar and smacked my lips in appreciation at my brilliant victory.

And then I get a peace offer. At first I was inclined to say no but then I started doing something that is always for me a perilous undertaking, ‘ thinking’ about my situation. My little gray cells started huffing and puffing on the question of what could I expect to get out of this war? A province or two that I didn’t want in Ming or Korea? Fat chance of that happening and fatter chance that Japan would be able to hang on to it. No I decided to take the peace offer because I was beginning to run into trouble in Brunei. You’ll notice in the snap shot that the 21st army is in a bad way. They started off with 5,000 men in Brunei. I didn’t want Ming to get to a point where they were going to start demanding a province for peace. So even though I was over all having the better of the fighting I agreed to their peace demands.
Japan1487peace.jpg

Just a last quick note of a thought I had for refusing the peace agreement. I figured if the Ming is fighting Japan then it isn’t expanding toward the West or is at least going at a slower pace. But I didn’t see why Japan should play the martyr for the TO and Sicily’s advantage.



And so I spend the next couple of years recovering from the fight and trying to get the AI controlled Japan prepared for the next possible war by rebuilding my fleet and armies.
Japan1492.jpg


Now will Ming and Korea look somewhere else and leave Japan alone?
 
That ai likes trade in the nations yoou've chosen.i wonder if hat is just ai policy or you've just been unlucky? The strategy the ai is following in the TO would make more sense for Japan. In your absence, Japan will convert again, disband its armies and navies and trade. Though now the ai knows about the Ming fleet, it may go naval.

The Teutonic Knights have fought onewar with Lithuania that you know about, how many has it fought since?
 
Decent showing for AI Japan. I don't think the AI disbands ships, but he does disband armies. Spending your money on ships is probably a safe investment.

I find the AI usually sends no more than 1 or 2 regiments for an amphibious assault, which will fail if there are 3-5 regiments waiting for them. If the army can retreat somewhere, then it might grow overtime when the AI ships more troops. That means you should always take 2 neighboring provinces to improve your chances of the AI holding them against rebels. Of course, this also improves the chance for an aggressive neighbor to beat on your AI country, but it should help protect your initial territory.

You may want to consider making vassals out of Korea and Manchu. Vassals never declare war so your AI Japan would be a little safer from AI Ming.
 
Now will Ming and Korea look somewhere else and leave Japan alone?
Click to expand...
No. Instead you’ll have to spend twenty years praying that the AI is lucky enough to hold on.
 
What a miracle that saved Japan from the Ming Fleet. Maybe it was the Kamikaze-Divine Wind that sunk all those ships... :eek:

However, I think that Japan is in a bad position to win this game as they literally can't move as long as the Chinese-Korean alliance is pointing its sword at Japan's throat...
 
How have I missed ths one for so long? Great writing, good gameplay and an interesting challenge. Not to mention a suprisingly competent AI (well, apart from the whole war-with-Ming thing). I wonder what it's done with the Teutons?
 
Well could be a lot worse.

Let's just hope the TO haven't decided to go round 2 with Lithuania.
 
Well done with this war. If you lost that sea battle this could be game over for Japan. Might I suggest standard anti-Ming tactic of sowing discontent until they get to -3 stab and keeping them there? Also, Japan is in a pretty good position to become a trading power. You don't have that many other things to spend national ideas on...

Maciek
 
Cool Joe, another three countries AAR. Just read through it and it looks like things are going well so far. Nice to know you found something to keep you entertained while subsequent patches are released. Looking forward to seeing if you can get the win here. Good luck.
 
Your fleet seems a little hurt. Did you capture anything?
 
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