WC with Malacca in IN 3.1 – Complete Insanity???

[Rastar]

Hm, might be nice to take an additional inland province or two in the peace deal to cut off Ming's troops from their own southern, largely ethnic-minority provinces. When rebels ultimately take them (I doubt they can recruit fast enough there), they'll defect w/ no problem. Too bad nationalist defections require a minimum of 3 years' occupation in 3.1.

That is a very good point. Would potentially cut off 8-10 provinces. Will have to look at that in peace deals.

 

[Scipio Aemilius]

Great work! I would have stopped the sieging of the capital only to get their WE up the roof though. And IIRC, you need at least 22% WS to be able to stab-hit with peace deals. You should continue to try to reach 90% WS though, as the next peace deal will increase the cost of the provinces, so grab as many as you can now!

And thanks for the WC screenie!

 

[unmerged(111870)]

Nice deal you can get there - Fuijan down to 14% from 32!!!


In 3.0. the Capital was in Jizhou - Did they change that fact.

Still think, you should have let the megastack suck Mings MP pool dry through attrition,..

 

[PrawnStar]

The advantage to cutting off the Southern provinces is that a nationalist revolt popping an independant nation keeps Ming in a war while you're at peace recovering.

 

[Rastar]

Great work! I would have stopped the sieging of the capital only to get their WE up the roof though. And IIRC, you need at least 22% WS to be able to stab-hit with peace deals. You should continue to try to reach 90% WS though, as the next peace deal will increase the cost of the provinces, so grab as many as you can now!

And thanks for the WC screenie!

Yes I definitely should have stopped the siege on their capital to do more stab hits. I did think about it quite a bit, but at that time I had planned to end the war quickly. It wasn’t till later that I did all the math and figured out I needed to drag out the war for a year in order to afford more troops. Have been kicking myself about the stab hits ever since. YW on the screenies.

Nice deal you can get there - Fuijan down to 14% from 32!!!

In 3.0. the Capital was in Jizhou - Did they change that fact.

Still think, you should have let the megastack suck Mings MP pool dry through attrition,..

Very observant on Jizhou. I hate the new capital location. It means I can’t take their COT for a long time, and that COT is by far the richest in the area.


Leaving the mega-stack would certainly have kept their MP pool empty. However, the stack might have grown out of control. It increased from 9k to 11k in the time we were watching it. I was comfortable attacking their 11k with my 9k of cav, but would not have been comfortable if their stack had grown very much larger. I basically decided to kill the stack while I could and deal with the MP consequences later. That being said, I certainly understand that other players might have made the opposite choice.

The advantage to cutting off the Southern provinces is that a nationalist revolt popping an independant nation keeps Ming in a war while you're at peace recovering.

Agreed. Highly likely that Shan would pop, since they were recently annexed.

 

[Enewald]

Yeh, try dividing Ming, so that they can not control non-core provinces.

 

[naggy]

Very observant on Jizhou. I hate the new capital location. It means I can’t take their COT for a long time, and that COT is by far the richest in the area.

Take all the provinces around Jizhou - Ming may move their capital. France did that to me when I surrounded Paris - they moved to Poitou.

I can't remember if Jizhou is coastal, but if it's not, then you can take it in a war once you've surrounded it.

 

[unmerged(109394)]

Well done. But im amazed at the AI stupidity. A human player would have steamrolled you in a year by simply doing Ming: smash advance smash advance...

 

[Rastar]

Take all the provinces around Jizhou - Ming may move their capital. France did that to me when I surrounded Paris - they moved to Poitou.

I can't remember if Jizhou is coastal, but if it's not, then you can take it in a war once you've surrounded it.

Ming’s capital is coastal. Will definitely plan to surround it as soon as I can. This will probably take 2-3 wars to accomplish, as I need land connection to my vassals and the provinces right around their capital are very high base tax.

Well done. But im amazed at the AI stupidity. A human player would have steamrolled you in a year by simply doing Ming: smash advance smash advance...

Thanks! Yes, I never would have DOWed a human playing Ming as they would have crushed me like a bug. While this AI certainly has exploitable weaknesses, I do think it performs better than the combat AIs in most other strategy games I have seen.

 

[Azugal]

More good news. I was interested to see that your progress has slowed somewhat (and understandably so) from Ming's use of mercs, Rebels, chasing his smaller stacks around and the like. Oh, ok, and missing out on getting him down to -3 Stab, lol (sorry for laughing, heh heh).

Still makes for a very interesting read, can't wait for the next installment. Will be interesting to see in the next war how well Japan (if you DoW her) uses her navy and amphibious transport of troops.

 

[unmerged(68910)]

loving this aar keep it up

 

[Qorten]

Good work against Ming!

 

[naggy]

While this AI certainly has exploitable weaknesses, I do think it performs better than the combat AIs in most other strategy games I have seen.

Oh, like Rome: Total War, where you could occasionally wipe out entire armies with a band or two of archers and a bridge? Or the infamous "draw one unit out, kill it, rinse, repeat" of most games?

One nasty thing about this AI is that just when you think it's doing something stupid, it blindsides you and eats an army or two of yours alive.

 

[Rastar]

Still makes for a very interesting read, can't wait for the next installment. Will be interesting to see in the next war how well Japan (if you DoW her) uses her navy and amphibious transport of troops.

Thanks! I am quite worried about dealing with Japan. My experience so far in 3.1 with the naval AI (Dai Viet, Maka, etc.) is that it is has been significantly changed. I will be flying blind on what Japan might do, and that is dangerous when you have a ton of island provinces .


@ Bonbon: Thanks!


@ Qorton: Glad you joined!

Oh, like Rome: Total War, where you could occasionally wipe out entire armies with a band or two of archers and a bridge?

After playing for a while, I finally had to create a house rule on "no using the archer/bridge exploit". The only way you ever lost was by running out of arrows :wacko:

 

[naggy]

After playing for a while, I finally had to create a house rule on "no using the archer/bridge exploit". The only way you ever lost was by running out of arrows :wacko:

It was a great way to get family members, though.

 

[P3D]

Two comments:
-enemy stability at -3 has greatly influence on war capacity, it might even lower the cost of some provinces.
-if you are at war with a nation that has provinces that's terra incognita you, you can explore those territories without a conquisdator. If you are at peace but have mil access, you will need a conquisdator. So ordering your troops to move to the other two (TI) Makassar provinces would have revealed it, and one of them iirc is a rich one.

 

[Rastar]

Two comments:
-enemy stability at -3 has greatly influence on war capacity, it might even lower the cost of some provinces.
-if you are at war with a nation that has provinces that's terra incognita you, you can explore those territories without a conquisdator. If you are at peace but have mil access, you will need a conquisdator. So ordering your troops to move to the other two (TI) Makassar provinces would have revealed it, and one of them iirc is a rich one.

Thanks! Stab-hitting to -3 would definitely have lowered war capacity. I have not yet noticed a connection between war capacity province cost in a peace deal, but to be honest I haven't really looked at that in 3.1 and clearly a lot of those calculations have changed.


Agreed on the TI comment.

 

[aldriq]

6 years until they finally sent you a white peace... but it has definitely been worth every second of the war. Seeing that they were at 3 stability most of the time I understand now how they could afford all those mercs

What are your plans against Japan? Without a navy I'd leave them alone for a while, although you don't have much choice if you want a quick re-DoW on Ming.

 

[Rastar]

6 years until they finally sent you a white peace... but it has definitely been worth every second of the war. Seeing that they were at 3 stability most of the time I understand now how they could afford all those mercs

What are your plans against Japan? Without a navy I'd leave them alone for a while, although you don't have much choice if you want a quick re-DoW on Ming.

Japan is a bit of a challenge. In the next episode, things don't go exactly as planned with them...

 

[MichaelM]

Wow, very impressive win over the Ming!

Can you post a big-picture map please? I'm still not quite clear on what you own currently, possibly because I'm not used to the names of provinces in the EU3 map.