Way to go Sicily. Neither Japan nor the Order is in any shape to prise Badakhstan from the Sicilian grasp. 'Course the ai might just disband your army there, which would make it very difficult to hold it.
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About those single regiment armies being annihilated;
this is indeed the 10:1 ratio rule.
When two armies meet in battle, the game checks to see if one army is 10 times bigger than the other army (or more). If so, the smaller army is immediately annihilated without any fight.
Furthermore, the same check is made AFTER the battle, which is why it sometimes happens with an army of say 15,000 against 2,000. At the end of the battle, the 1,200 or such that are left over are less than 10% of the opposing force and as such are annihilated.
While attrition is a bad thing for big armies, this 10:1 rule sometimes makes it very interesting to make exactly the kind of rolling waves attack strategy that you utilized !
In any case, a masterful update, hats off for the achievement and I'm just a little bit proud that you're doing exactly what I had mentioned in my previous post - drop off a huuuuge army in a single surrounded province and hope the AI doesn't disband it
A++
this is indeed the 10:1 ratio rule.
When two armies meet in battle, the game checks to see if one army is 10 times bigger than the other army (or more). If so, the smaller army is immediately annihilated without any fight.
Furthermore, the same check is made AFTER the battle, which is why it sometimes happens with an army of say 15,000 against 2,000. At the end of the battle, the 1,200 or such that are left over are less than 10% of the opposing force and as such are annihilated.
While attrition is a bad thing for big armies, this 10:1 rule sometimes makes it very interesting to make exactly the kind of rolling waves attack strategy that you utilized !
In any case, a masterful update, hats off for the achievement and I'm just a little bit proud that you're doing exactly what I had mentioned in my previous post - drop off a huuuuge army in a single surrounded province and hope the AI doesn't disband it
A++
Well hot damn! So, does this mean the other two will jocky for position to take it for themselves? I am thinking Japan might have the easier road there but you left a pretty big garrison.
Nice job, Joe. Let's just hope those sharks aren't too hungrey.
Nice job, Joe. Let's just hope those sharks aren't too hungrey.
Excel said:
I have seen it applied with ratios of 4.5 : 1 - before the battle commences (yes, I am sure). So there must be more involved.
Regards
Thorsten
And how many people voted for Sicily all those many moons ago when we were betting on who gets to the target provence?
Now, can they hold it.....
Now, can they hold it.....
Caught up with the latest updates... So Sicily has it then, let's see if they can hold it now...
took 2 days of reading to get here but i loved every minute of it.
and i must say stubborn as a mule is what you are (and belive it or not that can be a good thing) i would have given upp many times over.
have a couple of questions how do the AI get inflation down so fast with no national bank?
when you start a new game do you always recruit an army up to manpower?
when you mint does it not hurt your tech advancement (not that you had any choice)
and as several has already said you write really well and funny
and i must say stubborn as a mule is what you are (and belive it or not that can be a good thing) i would have given upp many times over.
have a couple of questions how do the AI get inflation down so fast with no national bank?
when you start a new game do you always recruit an army up to manpower?
when you mint does it not hurt your tech advancement (not that you had any choice)
and as several has already said you write really well and funny
Merak said:
I think he said early on he was play on very hard, which gives the AI big inflation bonuses, IIRC. So when he isn't playing a faction, they're lowering their inflation through no effort at all.
Stnylan - All is well on the home front. ‘She who will not be denied’ is getting better. I can tell because her demands are increasing.
Zimfan - Let’s hope Sicily can hold on to the goal. There are a couple of bumps in the road for them this turn.
Morgon1988 - Yes even in EU2 that was a strategy that I used. There were a couple of provinces where there are large armies but still the single regiment forces were more common.
Usually its been 10:1 ‘but’ as I’ve shown in earlier posts there is the occasional 1:1 battle where and entire army will be eliminated. Random factor? Who knows?
J. Passepartout - The Timurid must have taken more loses that I thought in there fights against Japan and Ming. They were nowhere near as tough this time but maybe it was my tactics that made the difference?
I’m still bummed at not going up in a hot air balloon. Most of my friends think we’re crazy but life's short so you have to do stuff like this. It keeps you young, not that you have to worry about that far a few more decades.
Capibara - Japan tries but. . . Well just read what happens.
Fulcrumvale - Possibly, unless Japan or the Teutonic Order can take it away from them.
Germanpeon - A million and one wars to be exact.
Amric - Some time you have to roll the dice. This time I hit my number. Thank the lord I have yearly saves turned on or I’d really be pissed off.
Ahura Mazda - I’m not sure you want to read what happened to Japan this turn.
Director - I plan to squat right down and draw a line in the sand and dare anyone to step over that line.
Chief ragusa - You hit on the one thing that I fear most. The AI disbanding my regiments there. It’s a real problem especially considering what happened to Japan as you’ll soon see.
Excel - Thanks. Ah, it checks after the battle as well as before? Now that makes sense and explains some of the strange results I’ve seen.
Coz1 - Yes both Japan and the Teutonic Order must try to take it away or they lose but I’m also worried about Timurid. Will Timurid attack or not that is the question. I have no idea what to expect.
Stroph1 - Yes can they hold it? Time will tell.
Murmurandus - I think everyone wonder if they can hold it.
Merak - Thanks for reading. Zimfan is right I’m playing on the hardest settings so the computer controlled countries get some advantages, which is part of the inflation answer. But I don’t know how much of an advantage they get because inflation does continue to increase. There were a few times that the countries inflation fell while the computer controlled the country but that might have been event related.
As for recruiting I almost always don’t have any men in the manpower pool so I have to wait for it to recover. Then depending on my money situation I will recruit regiments but I almost always keep it below my manpower support limit. Late in the game I haven’t worried as much about staying below the support limit but early on I did.
Minting 'seriously' hurts your tech advancement. That’s ‘one’ of the reasons the Teutonic Order fell so far behind. Even Sicily hasn’t kept up with the other European powers and Japan never had a chance.
I always say in life you have two choices. Either laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh and I tend to look at the game much as I do life. It’s the only way to absorbed the crap that come your way.
Joe
Zimfan - Let’s hope Sicily can hold on to the goal. There are a couple of bumps in the road for them this turn.
Morgon1988 - Yes even in EU2 that was a strategy that I used. There were a couple of provinces where there are large armies but still the single regiment forces were more common.
Usually its been 10:1 ‘but’ as I’ve shown in earlier posts there is the occasional 1:1 battle where and entire army will be eliminated. Random factor? Who knows?
J. Passepartout - The Timurid must have taken more loses that I thought in there fights against Japan and Ming. They were nowhere near as tough this time but maybe it was my tactics that made the difference?
I’m still bummed at not going up in a hot air balloon. Most of my friends think we’re crazy but life's short so you have to do stuff like this. It keeps you young, not that you have to worry about that far a few more decades.
Capibara - Japan tries but. . . Well just read what happens.
Fulcrumvale - Possibly, unless Japan or the Teutonic Order can take it away from them.
Germanpeon - A million and one wars to be exact.
Amric - Some time you have to roll the dice. This time I hit my number. Thank the lord I have yearly saves turned on or I’d really be pissed off.
Ahura Mazda - I’m not sure you want to read what happened to Japan this turn.
Director - I plan to squat right down and draw a line in the sand and dare anyone to step over that line.
Chief ragusa - You hit on the one thing that I fear most. The AI disbanding my regiments there. It’s a real problem especially considering what happened to Japan as you’ll soon see.
Excel - Thanks. Ah, it checks after the battle as well as before? Now that makes sense and explains some of the strange results I’ve seen.
Coz1 - Yes both Japan and the Teutonic Order must try to take it away or they lose but I’m also worried about Timurid. Will Timurid attack or not that is the question. I have no idea what to expect.
Stroph1 - Yes can they hold it? Time will tell.
Murmurandus - I think everyone wonder if they can hold it.
Merak - Thanks for reading. Zimfan is right I’m playing on the hardest settings so the computer controlled countries get some advantages, which is part of the inflation answer. But I don’t know how much of an advantage they get because inflation does continue to increase. There were a few times that the countries inflation fell while the computer controlled the country but that might have been event related.
As for recruiting I almost always don’t have any men in the manpower pool so I have to wait for it to recover. Then depending on my money situation I will recruit regiments but I almost always keep it below my manpower support limit. Late in the game I haven’t worried as much about staying below the support limit but early on I did.
Minting 'seriously' hurts your tech advancement. That’s ‘one’ of the reasons the Teutonic Order fell so far behind. Even Sicily hasn’t kept up with the other European powers and Japan never had a chance.
I always say in life you have two choices. Either laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh and I tend to look at the game much as I do life. It’s the only way to absorbed the crap that come your way.
Joe
Very impressive, Joe. And getting a CTD right after your first successful annexation of the target province - let's just call it a tribute to the countless EU2 CTDs that have devastated games and players alike throughout the last five years.
Here's hoping Sicily's still holding on to it in twenty years. That would be a triumph indeed: if you managed to play so well that not even twenty years of AI dunderheadedness could mess up your victory.
If I wore a hat, it'd be off to you right now.
Here's hoping Sicily's still holding on to it in twenty years. That would be a triumph indeed: if you managed to play so well that not even twenty years of AI dunderheadedness could mess up your victory.
If I wore a hat, it'd be off to you right now.
Stuyvesant - To tell the truth I hope Sicily does hold on to it but I'm going to try like hell to take it away from them. But not with Japan as you will soon see.
Joe
Joe
1753 Japan
Three strikes and you’re out.
Where to start with this sorrowful tale of woe with much hand wringing and teary eyed dreams dashed on the shore of an uncaring, unblinking, in your face computer program with an attitude, written by bootlicking programmers who want to lure unsuspecting innocent game players to a fate worst than death. In others words there was no saving Japan even by a master or if you prefer a nincompoop like myself.
So what happened? As the title above says I ran headlong into three insurmountable problems. Starting with the first and least in severity, a curve ball, I found that all the regiments I left in Punjab were gone. My guess is that they were disbanded by the AI in it’s infinite wisdom, may a worm enter through it’s backdoor and eat a hole in its programming until it resembles Swiss cheese. Still I could always replace those men once my manpower pool, which was once again at zero, replenished itself. Still there was the problem of getting them to Punjab.
Okay so I could over come that little obstacle but then I found that my revolt risk was at 22%. Well it was a fraction above 22 but I’m an optimist at heart. What did that mean? It meant that for the entire turn I was putting down revolts. We’re talking about multiple revolts as in the cascading kind of revolts. It happened so often I listed them by the patterns they displayed. The “Star Burst” was when several revolts popped up one after the other in different areas of my empire. The “Cherry Blossom” was limited to Japan where one province would revolt then another and another and another would burst forth. (It was quite lovely in a way) And then of course there was the “Skitter” which was a mindless, aimless splattering of revolts resembling a skipping stone across a calm lake. You never knew how many times it would skip. Sadly in this turn it skipped to a new world record. A knuckle ball for strike two.
Still, I squared my shoulders, I mean I squared my massive shoulders and thrust my lantern shaped jaw out until the end of my whiskers just brushed my computer screen and squinted my eyes in the most manly way I could as I concentrated on recovering from a mess that no other man could hope to recover from when the third strike came across the plate. A fast ball at 99 miles per hour.. My stability was at -3 and even though I, for the first time in the whole freaking existence of the game, found three decent artist to help in recovering stability it was still going to take me until 1759 to get to -2. Sigh
Still I tried to hold on to hope but it was a slippery beast, all angles and elbows, especially when I noticed that I was currently at war with Ayutthaya. I quickly weighted my options and since I didn’t have any troops anywhere near the battle front (Oh did I forget to mention that most of mymen were in Japan) to oppose them I decide to cut bait and run so I paid the bastards 150 ducats to leave me the hell alone. This gave me the false hope that I’d be able to rest in peace and get ready for a daring adventure against Sicily the likes of which have never been witnessed much less dreamed of. I had it all planned out and was just about to reach the you have to be kidding me phase of my plan when in 1757 Vijayanagar followed by Gondwana and Orissa declared war on me. Now I was tempted to show them who’s boss and all that but I decided that since they were capturing my provinces faster than the speed of light I should pay them 300 ducats to leave me alone.
Okay so its around 1758 and once again I’m putting together my final plan, lining my men up so next year when I hit -2 stability I’m going to jump all over Sicily and do some serious whomping when the mother of all revolts kicks in and I spend the next year and a half putting them down, which is just about the time I threw in the towel.
Yep it was 1760 and I was finally at -2 stability and realized that if I went to war I’d just implode under the weight of all the rebellions.
And that was that. I had my regiments spread all over the empire just putting down revolts and with only 4 transports to move them around and time running out even I had to admit that my plan to attack Sicily was a no go from the get go.
So what else happened this turn?
The Teutonic Order in 1757 get in a war with Sibir and Timurid. They agreed to a white peace in June 1762. So I might have some war exhaustion to deal with but it won’t be as bad as Japan.
Sicily gets dragged into a war with Burgundy against Austria. Burgundy wins a couple of provinces is all that changed hands in that war.
Oh in 1755 Tripoli declared war against Sicily. The Mamluks and Mali join Tripoli while Burgundy and Aragon join Sicily. Funny thing here is that I was worried about Mamluks since they are humongous and could do some real damage in the Middle East. So what do you think happens? Mali takes one province on the North African coast from Sicily and the Mamluks get nothing. Go figure.
We might be waving a last farewell to Japan unless the Teutonic Order can pull off a miracle. I think I need a slight rest after playing Japan so it might be this weekend before I give them a shot.
F%$#*&G Rebellions.
Oh and screw the photos. It was bad enough writing about this fiasco much less looking at it. We’re talking about real scar tissue here folks. I was really hoping to do something with Japan and this crap happens.
Three strikes and you’re out.
Where to start with this sorrowful tale of woe with much hand wringing and teary eyed dreams dashed on the shore of an uncaring, unblinking, in your face computer program with an attitude, written by bootlicking programmers who want to lure unsuspecting innocent game players to a fate worst than death. In others words there was no saving Japan even by a master or if you prefer a nincompoop like myself.
So what happened? As the title above says I ran headlong into three insurmountable problems. Starting with the first and least in severity, a curve ball, I found that all the regiments I left in Punjab were gone. My guess is that they were disbanded by the AI in it’s infinite wisdom, may a worm enter through it’s backdoor and eat a hole in its programming until it resembles Swiss cheese. Still I could always replace those men once my manpower pool, which was once again at zero, replenished itself. Still there was the problem of getting them to Punjab.
Okay so I could over come that little obstacle but then I found that my revolt risk was at 22%. Well it was a fraction above 22 but I’m an optimist at heart. What did that mean? It meant that for the entire turn I was putting down revolts. We’re talking about multiple revolts as in the cascading kind of revolts. It happened so often I listed them by the patterns they displayed. The “Star Burst” was when several revolts popped up one after the other in different areas of my empire. The “Cherry Blossom” was limited to Japan where one province would revolt then another and another and another would burst forth. (It was quite lovely in a way) And then of course there was the “Skitter” which was a mindless, aimless splattering of revolts resembling a skipping stone across a calm lake. You never knew how many times it would skip. Sadly in this turn it skipped to a new world record. A knuckle ball for strike two.
Still, I squared my shoulders, I mean I squared my massive shoulders and thrust my lantern shaped jaw out until the end of my whiskers just brushed my computer screen and squinted my eyes in the most manly way I could as I concentrated on recovering from a mess that no other man could hope to recover from when the third strike came across the plate. A fast ball at 99 miles per hour.. My stability was at -3 and even though I, for the first time in the whole freaking existence of the game, found three decent artist to help in recovering stability it was still going to take me until 1759 to get to -2. Sigh
Still I tried to hold on to hope but it was a slippery beast, all angles and elbows, especially when I noticed that I was currently at war with Ayutthaya. I quickly weighted my options and since I didn’t have any troops anywhere near the battle front (Oh did I forget to mention that most of mymen were in Japan) to oppose them I decide to cut bait and run so I paid the bastards 150 ducats to leave me the hell alone. This gave me the false hope that I’d be able to rest in peace and get ready for a daring adventure against Sicily the likes of which have never been witnessed much less dreamed of. I had it all planned out and was just about to reach the you have to be kidding me phase of my plan when in 1757 Vijayanagar followed by Gondwana and Orissa declared war on me. Now I was tempted to show them who’s boss and all that but I decided that since they were capturing my provinces faster than the speed of light I should pay them 300 ducats to leave me alone.
Okay so its around 1758 and once again I’m putting together my final plan, lining my men up so next year when I hit -2 stability I’m going to jump all over Sicily and do some serious whomping when the mother of all revolts kicks in and I spend the next year and a half putting them down, which is just about the time I threw in the towel.
Yep it was 1760 and I was finally at -2 stability and realized that if I went to war I’d just implode under the weight of all the rebellions.
And that was that. I had my regiments spread all over the empire just putting down revolts and with only 4 transports to move them around and time running out even I had to admit that my plan to attack Sicily was a no go from the get go.
So what else happened this turn?
The Teutonic Order in 1757 get in a war with Sibir and Timurid. They agreed to a white peace in June 1762. So I might have some war exhaustion to deal with but it won’t be as bad as Japan.
Sicily gets dragged into a war with Burgundy against Austria. Burgundy wins a couple of provinces is all that changed hands in that war.
Oh in 1755 Tripoli declared war against Sicily. The Mamluks and Mali join Tripoli while Burgundy and Aragon join Sicily. Funny thing here is that I was worried about Mamluks since they are humongous and could do some real damage in the Middle East. So what do you think happens? Mali takes one province on the North African coast from Sicily and the Mamluks get nothing. Go figure.
We might be waving a last farewell to Japan unless the Teutonic Order can pull off a miracle. I think I need a slight rest after playing Japan so it might be this weekend before I give them a shot.
F%$#*&G Rebellions.
Oh and screw the photos. It was bad enough writing about this fiasco much less looking at it. We’re talking about real scar tissue here folks. I was really hoping to do something with Japan and this crap happens.
Good recovery from your CTD. I know about EU2 crashes - saves that never were and endings that refuse to be duplicated. You only had to take a couple of extra provinces to achieve the same end, in EU3. That has to be progress.
One of the fascinating elements to your game, has been a window into how the ai works.
The war between the Timurids and Japan seems to have weakened both. That's possibly fatal for Japan: the ai seems to have a suicidal disinterest in crushing revolts and long wars cause those to crop up with increasing frequency. I can't see how Japan can get troops to the theatre. They have to go through the Timurids to get at Badgoalprovince and then they have the problem of attaining the warscore to force Sicily to relinquish it. The TO has the additional hindrance that Sicily is allied to Burgundy.
I think that the previous game you had with Sicily helped you avoid the pitfalls this time around. If you played the TO or Japan again, you might do a lot better. Not sure how you're going to top this unless you take a three counties in 1066 in the new CK game and play right through to 1820 taking a decade in charge of each.
One of the fascinating elements to your game, has been a window into how the ai works.
The war between the Timurids and Japan seems to have weakened both. That's possibly fatal for Japan: the ai seems to have a suicidal disinterest in crushing revolts and long wars cause those to crop up with increasing frequency. I can't see how Japan can get troops to the theatre. They have to go through the Timurids to get at Badgoalprovince and then they have the problem of attaining the warscore to force Sicily to relinquish it. The TO has the additional hindrance that Sicily is allied to Burgundy.
I think that the previous game you had with Sicily helped you avoid the pitfalls this time around. If you played the TO or Japan again, you might do a lot better. Not sure how you're going to top this unless you take a three counties in 1066 in the new CK game and play right through to 1820 taking a decade in charge of each.
I entirely agree, the performances of the ai, in their various guises, are one of the more interesting things about this AAR. Where the ai fluffs, and more rarely where it succeeds.
Heh... nice turn... and you're hoping that the TO one is getting better... heh... Guess what...
Poor Storey,
I 'm sure we all really feel for you (and for Japan).
Still, one man's death is another's bread as we say here and so we seem the tale slowly spiral to its stunning conclusion !
You certainly deserve a bit of a break and I'll be very keen to see how the TO will fare after the weekend !!
The AI has been behaving very strangely, in the view of a human player. But what it mostly also showed is consistency. It kept on making the same 'mistakes' over and over again. And while in this AAR they indeed seem mistakes, it's just because of the AI not inherently knowing your plans. Taking this into consideration, it HAS shown that it's quite capable to hang onto brittle gains and to make strategically sound decisions.
Have a nice break and we'll hear from you soon !
I 'm sure we all really feel for you (and for Japan).
Still, one man's death is another's bread as we say here and so we seem the tale slowly spiral to its stunning conclusion !
You certainly deserve a bit of a break and I'll be very keen to see how the TO will fare after the weekend !!
The AI has been behaving very strangely, in the view of a human player. But what it mostly also showed is consistency. It kept on making the same 'mistakes' over and over again. And while in this AAR they indeed seem mistakes, it's just because of the AI not inherently knowing your plans. Taking this into consideration, it HAS shown that it's quite capable to hang onto brittle gains and to make strategically sound decisions.
Have a nice break and we'll hear from you soon !
Excel said:
I must have missed that part.
Obviously using Burgundy's manpower is cheating and you should start again.
Nice work, it's all over bar the slaughter of the Order, no way they can make it there in time.
Sequel: Four Countries, one goal, positive stability! :rofl:
NOOOO!!! Japan was my favourite. But Sicily was my second favourite so there we go.
I guess we now know why Japan was at war for so damn long - they pulled all their men back to Japan proper and refused to confront the enemy. Bah! What kind of Bushido code is that? I can't blame you, Joe. You tried to instill some fighting spirit in there and they just wouldnt cooperate.
So it's back to the TO and they get one turn to knock Sicily out? Is that right? Well, I'm not sure which to root for now...they have both done such impressive jobs getting close to the objective and the TO really has been like a Phoenix several times over...but that last war with Sicily was genius so I guess I'll stick with the mob.
So it's back to the TO and they get one turn to knock Sicily out? Is that right? Well, I'm not sure which to root for now...they have both done such impressive jobs getting close to the objective and the TO really has been like a Phoenix several times over...but that last war with Sicily was genius so I guess I'll stick with the mob.
Well done for Sicily. My deepest condolences for Japan.
Maybe Chief Ragusa is right and prior playing experience with Japan or the TO would have changed the outcome, but I still think that Sicily was by far in the best position to reach the goal. It is easily defensible being in a peninsula (unlike TO), has no uncontested 'monster' neighbours (no Mings or Lithuanias), has the rich provinces of northern Italy to grow relatively undisturbed and a magnificent shortcut to the goal province through the Black Sea. And you did waste a couple of turns in North Africa and Turkey so actually you could have reached the goal even earlier.
Looking forward to the conclusion, but a bit sad at the same time, like with a good TV series, we'll all miss this AAR
Maybe Chief Ragusa is right and prior playing experience with Japan or the TO would have changed the outcome, but I still think that Sicily was by far in the best position to reach the goal. It is easily defensible being in a peninsula (unlike TO), has no uncontested 'monster' neighbours (no Mings or Lithuanias), has the rich provinces of northern Italy to grow relatively undisturbed and a magnificent shortcut to the goal province through the Black Sea. And you did waste a couple of turns in North Africa and Turkey so actually you could have reached the goal even earlier.
Looking forward to the conclusion, but a bit sad at the same time, like with a good TV series, we'll all miss this AAR