Rastar said:
Have you tried mods - some of them improve the AI a lot in Total War games.
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Have you tried mods - some of them improve the AI a lot in Total War games.
MichaelM said:
Thanks! Will definitely include a big picture map in this next update. It will be right after the peace deal with Ming.
Serus said:
I probably should try them. Lost interest in that series a while ago and haven't played in a while. Before I got into EU, I was playing a couple of space jockey games like Sins of a Solar Empire.
Update – The best laid plans of mice and men…
4/1447 Year 7 of the war starts off swimmingly. Down south I was able to kill off both of Ming’s 5k stacks, so that threat is gone and their troop count is down to 16k. We had a couple more sieges completed, and warscore is now up to 70%. I am about ready to recruit 5k of infantry. While this will cost me some money in maintenance, they will be useful in sieging Ming down south during this war and driving up warscore. I only have cores on 5 provinces, so can’t wait till the last minute to start army recruitment.
Up north, we have good news with rebels. In the green circle we have a combo stack of rebels that want to re-create their old countries, and Ming doesn’t have enough troops nearby to stop them. In the red circle we have very good news. The 2 big pops of Chihan rebels have moved together into the same province, which means they will get more attrition and will only munch half as many of my sieges as previously. The province they are in is about the only place where my sieges will be lifed, as I have enough armies wandering around to stop all the rest.
The choice of a re-DOW target for Ming is Japan, as that is the easiest choice. This DOW will bring in their ally Tibet. Talking about this is a lot easier than actually doing it. Japan has 38k of armies, a huge fleet, 0% RR, and Land Tech 5. I plan to be completely defensive against Japan and focus on Ming. With the changes in the naval AI I really have no clue how or where Japan will attack me, so will be keeping quite a few armies in the back lines to respond to them. Tibet has 4k troops and really poor land, so if I invade them the only purpose is to take money and vassalize.
The other potential re-DOW target (Manchu) is guaranteed by Japan, so just no way to get a war with Ming without Japan being involved.
9/1447 Things continue going well on all fronts. Do you get the eerie feeling that this is about to dramatically change?
Down south we have had several Cantonese rebel pops, so spending a lot of time chasing them around and disrupting their sieges. Ming does not have any troops down south, but the rebel count is around 15k. In the green circles, my vassals are being extremely helpful on sieges.In the blue circle, you can see that we have a big battle with Ming’s troops up north. We will win that battle but probably not get the overrun, and since their troops are in several stacks they may scatter in several directions. Overall, Ming is down to 14k troops.
I have finished recruitment on 9k of infantry, bringing us to 37k troops in total. Warscore is up to 75%, and WE is down to 3.16.
1/1448 !@#$!#$%!#$%!#@$
Manchu declares war on Ming. Japan dishonors its alliance with Ming. Tibet joins Manchu in war on Ming. One day later, Chagatai declares war on Ming. Nogai, Khiva, and Sind all join Chagatai in war on Ming. Yes, the AI is quite good at smelling blood in the water. This is horrible news for me. Since Japan dishonored their alliance and Manchu is now at war, I just lost both ways to re-DOW Ming. I was only a couple months away from a peace deal, so timing is about as bad as it can get. In one day, all the plans of the last year go down the drain.
Time for a quick trip to the fridge for a beer. This one will require some thought.
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On a totally unrelated note, I really like beer.
Anyway, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight I realize I made a big mistake a few months ago. This mistake was rather subtle, so I don’t feel like a complete idiot as I did after forgetting to stab-hit Ming. Unfortunately, this mistake has a much worse impact on me than the failure to stab-hit.This mistake is this…I should have stopped killing Ming’s troops when I got them down to 15k. The reason all these countries DOWed Ming is because they smelled blood in the water, and the single most important factor in their decision is how many troops the enemy has. Every time I have killed Ming’s troops the last few months, it has made the AI countries more likely to attack them. Manchu is the most obvious candidate to DOW Ming, since it recently lost cored provinces to them. The “blood-in-the-water” calculation also means that AI Japan is much less likely to honor a call to arms by Ming. So there we have it; I killed too many of Ming’s troops, which led directly to me losing all ability to re-DOW them.
1/1448 Ok, I finished off the beer and came up with the new plan. First off, I will peace out Ming soon. Ming’s new wars will keep them busy and their WE high for a while, meaning they won’t be able to rebuild their armies. I have no idea how long these wars will last, so need to start the clock ticking on our truce as soon as possible. It will be a few months till we are in position, as quite a few of my troops are in the north at the moment.
Second, due to the broken alliances I now have an easy way to attack Japan. Their only ally is Tibet, and I burned about 10 diplomats over the last few years to finally get military access to Japan. After I am finished with Ming, I can land a bunch of armies on Japan and then DOW Tibet. The war with Japan will take me a while, and by the time it is done it should be about time to DOW Ming again. I am guessing that Ming will still be in pretty rough shape by then.
4/1448 We are now in year 8 of the war. Most of my troops have moved south already, although we still have a couple stragglers in the green circle headed that direction. Unfortunately my troops are rather busy at the moment. In the blue circle we are fighting rebels who wandered south into territory we want in the peace deal. In the purple circle, we had yet another rebel pop on Brunei and they are already 25% done with the siege, so I have other troops headed there to defend.
As you can see in the red, Manchu is enthusiastically if unskillfully waging war on Ming.
The stack you see there is 100% of Manchu’s troops. Tibet has yet to make a move. Now that they are at war with Ming, I would like to help them out as much as I can. This means killing off as many of Ming’s troops as possible…as long as I can do it quickly. In the dark red circle, we have some troops sitting in a province where Ming will finish recruiting mercs in 8 days. Ming’s troop count is currently 7.5k. Warscore has jumped dramatically to 89%, so will be getting even more provinces than previously thought. 
4/1448 Time to move a slider. This means a lot of math on preparing to Westernize. If you already know all this math, you may want to skip the next few paragraphs.
Requirement #1: Have Centralization at –2 or better. I already have this one due to previous slider moves.
Requirement #2: Have a leader with ADM of 6+. I have that now, and can only cross my fingers that our glorious leader will have that stat when we are ready.
Requirement #3: Have stability of +3. I have that now, and can regain stab fairly quickly if I lose a point for some reason.
Requirement #4: Have a Latin Tech neighbor. This one is by far the most difficult for Malacca. The closest Latin Tech countries are a VERY long ways away. In order to get to them I need QFTNW. In order to get QFTNW, I need Trade Tech 7. I have been investing 100% in Trade Tech for a while now and am almost at level 4. Tech levels currently take about 14 years each to research, so on current pace I should reach level 7 in 44 years…so right around 1492 I will be able to sail the ocean blue. Getting lots of new land would tend to slow down the pace, but this new land will be high tax base, plus will start to get cores on the early conquests in around 10 years. I do expect some more random events causing stab hits and forcing me to invest in stab….so for now 1492 seems a good estimate for QFTNW.
Once I get QFTNW, it will take me perhaps 5 years to explore around India and Africa, find a nice Latin Tech neighbor, and set up camp nearby. So, the “Latin Tech neighbor” requirement for Westernizing will be done around 1497.
Requirement #5: Have Innovative slider at –3 or better. I am at 0 innovative now and it currently takes 12.2 years for a slider move. With 3.1 I am not sure how long slider moves will take after grabbing a bunch of land from Ming and Japan, so figure perhaps 14 years per move. If I start moving innovative now, I will be at -3 by around 1490. Looks like I have to move innovative in order to Westernize as soon as possible.
I grit my teeth, pound my head on the keyboard, and move 1 towards innovative. I really don’t like being innovative. This move reduces my missionaries to 0.05 per year, and I need tons of missionaries to convert all this great land I will be getting. However, in this game I have to become Westernized fast in order to have a shot at the WC. My reward for the slider move is “you look weak” meaning –5 prestige. In 3.0 this would not bother me at all, but so far in 3.1 it seems much harder to build up prestige. After tons of warfare and winning battles, I am barely above 30% prestige.
4/1448 Korea declares war on Ming. Every single one of their neighbors is now at war with them. I almost feel sorry for Ming, but not quite.
With Ming now at war with 7 other countries in 3 separate conflicts, the odds are good that at least one of those wars will last for quite a while. This also makes me less inclined to spend warscore on taking marginal provinces in order to isolate Ming’s land in the southwest.
6/1448 Peace with Ming after 8 years and 2 months of war!!!
This peace deal is for 10 really good provinces that all have 5+ base tax. In addition, it pushes Ming’s ports as far north as possible and sets me up to surround the capital in the next war. In the green circle at the top, I have saved a few missionaries to spread the word of Allah in this new land, although will wait before placing them in order for RR to cool off a bit.
6/1448 By the end of the war, I was able to get Ming’s total troop count down to 5.9k. Manchu has 9.2k troops, while Korea has 6.7k troops.
In the blue circle on the right, we are restocking merchants in Ming’s COT. My BB is 21.54/42.00, but my compete odds against most other countries are still pretty good at around 50%. The main reason for the decent compete odds is the free trade slider.
In the notes at the bottom, there is more fun with rebels.
WE is 2.79, and it should drop very quickly while we are at peace. 
6/1448 By request, here is big picture map of the Far East right after the peace deal with Ming. I included India just for fun, even though it is TI to Malacca. It looks like Deccan is the major power in India in this game, and Vija has been reduced to an OPM.
7/1448 All the war drove Land Tradition above 80%, so time to roll the dice again on hiring a general before tradition erodes. One of my old generals died last month, so I only have one left. Jackpot!
9/1448 In regularly expected news, we have a rebel pop in the dark red circle. However, the bright red circle is big, big news. Quite unexpectedly, the Chihan rebels did not disband when the sieges were over and we signed the peace deal with Ming. It appears that every single Chihan rebel stayed intact and decided to head south and attack me. Here we have a 7.5k batch of them about to arrive.
This is a huge change from 3.0, and it could really mess up my plan to attack Japan. I don’t remember exactly how many Chihan rebels there were across all of Ming’s territory, but guessing around 25k.
In the blue circle, we are fighting lots of rebels in both Brunei and Pegu, and we have not yet even touched the rebel pop in Arakan.
Will we be able to fight off the rebels and attack Japan? Will we ever see a rebel pop for Wu, Xia, or Qin? Will Ming's enemies keep them busy till our truce is over? Stay tuned for the next episode…
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Why attack Japan? They have a fleet, a powerful fleet and you need a lot of island colonies. You've got the right general to fight rebels and Ming will likely still be weak when the truce expires.
Very cool peace deal. The rebels will be very annoying, but dead mallacans wonth hurt WE anymore, so the repercussions won't be that great. Thats a master of the kill Ming style.
Just take a minor break, then DOW the Japanese foe. Hows the japanese naval AI going in ? Any attrition/WE in Japan yet???
Just take a minor break, then DOW the Japanese foe
. Hows the japanese naval AI going in ? Any attrition/WE in Japan yet???
One tactic could have been to sit on Ming until her enemies peace out, but that wastes valuable WC time unless you get defections. Defections in Ming mean provinces all over the place, which may hurt you more than help.
Before the next Ming smackdown, you should warn her neighbors.
Before the next Ming smackdown, you should warn her neighbors.
Well, you can re-DoW Ming, taking the -5 stab hit. As you said yourself, you'll recover them quickly. Anyway, that's what I'd do, I'd much rather kill a dead guy than fight a blackbelt! Still, good job on the peace deal! You really proved me (and many others) wrong by beating them when the odds were highly against you!
Excellent work and a very good peace deal. I've just spent the day fighting my first big 3.1 war as Muscovy against the GH so I'm impressed. It went wrong and the sharks struck real fast when my blood was in the water. Strategic depth seems to be one of the best weapons against this AI. I get the impression it's a lot sharper than previously, what's your view?
Do you need to attack Japan at this point? It seems to me your medium term aims are Westernise and trash Ming; does hitting Japan help this? It can be done, but should it?
Ming should stay weak with the current wars and rebels, the diplomatic situation might also change.
Do you need to attack Japan at this point? It seems to me your medium term aims are Westernise and trash Ming; does hitting Japan help this? It can be done, but should it?
Ming should stay weak with the current wars and rebels, the diplomatic situation might also change.
That's not a bad plan if he can handle the increased RR from negative stability in his newly-conquered provinces.Scipio Aemilius said:
Why Japan? Wrong culture, wrong religion... wouldn't they be easier to leave until you have Westernized?
Thanks for all the wonderful comments, suggestions, and questions. Here are my thoughts on the “Why attack Japan?” question posed by several people.
That is a fair question. I look at Japan as a nice-to-have versus a must-have, so would attack them if it doesn't interfere with demolishing Ming.
I have a larger army than needed for rebel control. Unfortunately, I have too low of morale and too many high RR provinces to really skimp on army maintenance. This means that 15k-20k of troops could be hanging out at full maintenance for extended periods of time waiting for the truce with Ming to expire. If I end up in that situation, might as well do something useful with them
Japan has 3 wonderful provinces that I want -- a COT, a gold mine, and the province that connects them together. Owning those 3 would give my economy a big boost and cripple Japan.
Since I finally got military access to Japan and can DOW through Tibet, I would land troops on Japan before the DOW and fight the entire war without engaging their navy.
Edit: While not a major point, it would be nice to have Japan crippled before we go over the BB limit.
That is a fair question. I look at Japan as a nice-to-have versus a must-have, so would attack them if it doesn't interfere with demolishing Ming.
I have a larger army than needed for rebel control. Unfortunately, I have too low of morale and too many high RR provinces to really skimp on army maintenance. This means that 15k-20k of troops could be hanging out at full maintenance for extended periods of time waiting for the truce with Ming to expire. If I end up in that situation, might as well do something useful with them
Japan has 3 wonderful provinces that I want -- a COT, a gold mine, and the province that connects them together. Owning those 3 would give my economy a big boost and cripple Japan.
Since I finally got military access to Japan and can DOW through Tibet, I would land troops on Japan before the DOW and fight the entire war without engaging their navy.
Edit: While not a major point, it would be nice to have Japan crippled before we go over the BB limit.
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My guesses for why Japan:
- he has military access, which they may eventually revoke, so he can start with troops on Japanese territory, giving him both intel and saving him having to ferry them across against a far superior navy
- In the first war, he can grab lands on the Japanese mainland, so he won't regret losing military access
- Japan has an ally in Tibet, allowing him to declare war on Tibet with troops already in Japanese lands and dragging Japan in
- They're the biggest Naval power other than (perhaps) Ming, so if you lose that initial chance to get a foothold/DoW with troops in Japanese territory, it would make the eventual war so much harder, if not impossible until he has a massive navy.
- they would be the other major military power in the area(?). Better to knock them down early and keep them down. Especially if they start taking any lands off Ming.
- I would Imagine (haven't checked) that Japan also has rich lands to plunder.
- he can then alternate between smacking down Ming and Japan
- he has military access, which they may eventually revoke, so he can start with troops on Japanese territory, giving him both intel and saving him having to ferry them across against a far superior navy
- In the first war, he can grab lands on the Japanese mainland, so he won't regret losing military access
- Japan has an ally in Tibet, allowing him to declare war on Tibet with troops already in Japanese lands and dragging Japan in
- They're the biggest Naval power other than (perhaps) Ming, so if you lose that initial chance to get a foothold/DoW with troops in Japanese territory, it would make the eventual war so much harder, if not impossible until he has a massive navy.
- they would be the other major military power in the area(?). Better to knock them down early and keep them down. Especially if they start taking any lands off Ming.
- I would Imagine (haven't checked) that Japan also has rich lands to plunder.
- he can then alternate between smacking down Ming and Japan
Teach me to take too long to type out a reply.
Excellent progress. Looking forward to seeing how (if) Ming pulls itself out of the troubles it's in now and how they look when it's time to re-DoW them.
Excellent progress. Looking forward to seeing how (if) Ming pulls itself out of the troubles it's in now and how they look when it's time to re-DoW them.
In addition, lacking access to India or points west and being stuck with your truce in China, there's really not much else to do, at least that was any worth or poses any challenge.
Didaa said:
Nope. Must have a neighbor (in this case, neighbors are called "future snacks")
Rastar said:1/1448 !@#$!#$%!#$%!#@$
Manchu declares war on Ming. Japan dishonors its alliance with Ming. Tibet joins Manchu in war on Ming. One day later, Chagatai declares war on Ming. Nogai, Khiva, and Sind all join Chagatai in war on Ming. Yes, the AI is quite good at smelling blood in the water. This is horrible news for me. Since Japan dishonored their alliance and Manchu is now at war, I just lost both ways to re-DOW Ming. I was only a couple months away from a peace deal, so timing is about as bad as it can get. In one day, all the plans of the last year go down the drain.
Time for a quick trip to the fridge for a beer. This one will require some thought.
Ha, I like how you think! Maybe you should think about switching to something stronger; it’ll get those thinking juices flowing faster.
On the game, it certainly always looks like its out to end your plans. Great peace deal and nice work on keeping your manpower up with Ming! I’m horrible at that...
On another note, you mentioned prestige in your update. Do you often worry about it? I almost never look at it while I’m playing and if I do, its mostly for amusement.
