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Back in Iberia, Spain is LOSING to Liege and GB. Looks like a Protestant wind is a-blowin'! :cool:

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And what the hell is this?! France, in England?! o_O

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Looks like France is gonna put the "B"(BB) in GB :cool:

here is what happened: GB fought Spain, and naval invaded their south american CN because it was best idea possible. Then they got black flagged. France declared on GB, didn't fight the war, and the Kalmar Union did all the work...

"Aftzer all, theuse feulk kneuw heuw to invade the English" said Louis De Valois.

And now, we're releasing a vassal, who we're going to feed the east coast to! Between Pate, Mombasa, and Malindi, we chose Malindi because they had cores on the 4 provinces we took.

Religious vassals are always good. Wasn't it possible to full annex and release Auuraan as vassal? Granted, you would have gotten free mogadishu vassal...

But Ajuuraan is one of the best religious converter vassals, after Najd.

And now, 30 years later, we have the printing press! And another 15 production gold mine, we're rolling in shekels!

I'm picturing a giant Iglo like building filled with gold now, where da king swims in it when he feels like it..

And we're now officially able to "steal tech", and dip 9 cost a mere 178 mana! Man, I remember the old days of leaving dip tech at 7 for a few centuries, then mass developing techs to get tech 22/23 for the CB. I kinda miss those days, but also kinda don't.

you should STILL do that.

Tank dip tech and only level up admin when you need extra idea slots when you reach ahead of time in military.

Stack -tech reduction bonuses and tank unbalanced tech. You got the gold for it, and it will save you loads of monarch points.

Speaking of, I would have gone for quantity as first mil idea. And I wouldtake admin (first three ideas) and diplomatic before getting mil idea.

But, offensive is never bad. Please make sure you keep up to tech to Europeans though ;)
 
Admit it - you like fighting the Iberians. Double the nations double the fun, right? :D
 
Solid progress, though PP was very expensive to acquire, probably with a lot of loans? Did you already went bankrupt or not?

Actually, because I took nearly a thousand ducats from Mombasa, and I'm making about 10 ducats a month in profit, paying 1200~ for the press required no loans.

Religious vassals are always good. Wasn't it possible to full annex and release Auuraan as vassal? Granted, you would have gotten free mogadishu vassal...

But Ajuuraan is one of the best religious converter vassals, after Najd.

I probably could have, but I didn't want them to have massive LD from having all that land immediately. The next war with them will have them being full annexed and fed to Malindi, and then I'll release them from that one 1/1/1 province I kept, by then I should have another province for Deus Vult adjacency.

I'm picturing a giant Iglo like building filled with gold now, where da king swims in it when he feels like it..

Speaking of, here's a rare clip of the king, inspecting his wealth:

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you should STILL do that.

Tank dip tech and only level up admin when you need extra idea slots when you reach ahead of time in military.

Stack -tech reduction bonuses and tank unbalanced tech. You got the gold for it, and it will save you loads of monarch points.

Speaking of, I would have gone for quantity as first mil idea. And I wouldtake admin (first three ideas) and diplomatic before getting mil idea.

But, offensive is never bad. Please make sure you keep up to tech to Europeans though ;)

Right now, I'm making sure to get close enough that I can get admin efficiency as soon as it's in sight.

I'm contemplating changing my idea groups, though. Right now, I'm heading east with my colonist, and after that, it's going to be time to fill in the African interior. But, I might end up abandoning exploration sooner and take admin for its obvious benefits.

Or I'll push tech to get another idea group, then stall out to get that finished fast.

And trust me, I'm not about to let some European get ahead of me again. I'm usually much better about that, especially after my games as American natives.

Admit it - you like fighting the Iberians. Double the nations double the fun, right? :D

I mean, I like eliminating them from the map, does that count?

But seriously, over my numerous campaigns, I've come to hate the majority of Europe.

Iberia - Ruin my day when I'm in ROTW, and never did anything for me when I was in Europe. Often drag me into wars with France/Austria.
France - BBB, hatred is justified.
England/GB - Worthless as an ally, extremely annoying to fight/kill due to their naval supremacy and forts all over their islands.
Germany - AE. Oh good lord that AE. Also, I've had to fight the HRE (the united country) in the final years of my Sunset Invasion, so yeah. Justified.
Scandinavia - Denmark and Norway usually have ICC, making their lands undesirable, and Sweden is alright, I guess.
Russia - Used to be a good ally, now they're too busy chopping down trees in Siberia for their forts, meaning I have to trek all the way to Tunguska to get that worthless land away from them.

So yeah, now all I need is something from Italy, PLC, and the Ottomans to put them on the list, and make it so I hate Europe in its entirety :p
 
Chapter 8: A Calculated Loss

Where we last left off, I had gotten distracted by my thoughts of why I dislike most of Europe. Oh, and we were going to attack Portugal again.

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We've put Malindi on scutage, that way the Iberians can't get easy WS from fighting them and sieging their land.

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About 100k vs. our 40k? Seems even to me :cool:

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After thinking about it, I've decided to go for sheer numbers over better combat abilities, at least for now. We've got the money for a huge army, we just need the force limit. Plus, the next age objective of "capacity for a large army" is an easy one to meet.

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Thanks to the inhabitants of Particularist Island, Portugal doesn't want to go for the easy WS. Plus, we get some nice vision on the north Atlantic, making it easy to keep track of the Iberian fleets.

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Here's why I'm not worried about the Iberians larger troop count: Spain is using 40 transports to move a single unit. I guess every man wanted his own ship, bunch of drama queens :rolleyes:

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We're keeping an eye on these two colonies, and we're fighting off any Spanish forces that land.

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Meanwhile, rebels in Malindi. But, we were prepared for this, we kept our army split in two, one on each coast. So we're able to put these rebels down without delay.

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And out Brazilian holdings are, once again, proving to be the most vital of assets :rolleyes:

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More Portuguese corpses for the compost pile.

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Pathetic.

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Spain's still making good use of Naval supremacy and a fleet of transports, this time, they sent 5k! :eek:

They died, btw.

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Now Spain's putting on their serious face, and it looks like this: :mad:

Meanwhile, we're putting on our serious face, and it looks like this: :p

Finally transporting a sizable army, good for you, Spain! you get a cookie!

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Even though they have a numerical advantage, we have the terrain on our side!

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Although, we did cut it kinda close :oops:

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And now we play a game of Zoroafrica's national pastime, ping-pong!

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Ping!

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Pong!

Also, I love how there's a single infantryman left. Instead of becoming a cannoneer, he's going all "don't worry, men, I will protect you and your massive guns! Nary a single foe shall get past my rifle and bayonet!"

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Looks like he abandoned his post, letting us wipe the floor with Spain's cannons o_O

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Some troops landed, but they quickly fled into the jungles of the north. We're super scary, BOO! :eek:

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BRITAIN! :eek:

I guess we're not THAT scary :oops:

They want our land in Brazil. But since Spain has it sieged up, neither side gets ticking warscore.

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Finally, after well over a hundred years, we finish our first idea group! DEUS VULT!

Also, our galleys are better now. But we don't have any, so it's kinda moot.

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More bodies for the compost pile!

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Britain only has 13 transport ships, so they used them all to bring 13k men to Loango.

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Too bad we wipe the floor with their silly Union Jack.

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After seeing Britain land, not being one to be outdone, Spain does the same thing with 14k men. But, they lose just as spectacularly as they usually do.

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Well, after another short game of ping-pong, Spain seems to really love the sport!

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But, it looks like we beat them TOO badly, and we ended up signing a white peace. Now we only need to deal with one "superpower" and one "threat".

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Skip ahead a few years (nothing happened, no landings, no nothing), we have moved half of our army to Arguin, and the Portuguese fleet tried to pin us down. Too bad we were prepared and had built a few heavies prior to our war declaration.

Portugal is downright pathetic, they've lost almost all of their African holdings, and since they JUST got colonial nations in the mid 1500s, they have an absolutely tiny fleet and force limit.

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We ended our war with Britain by giving them some money, and our Brazilian provinces. They weren't worth the hassle (Spain would get just enough WS from sieging them that they wouldn't want to leave the war until 6 years have passed, as opposed to the typical 5). Plus, we get some revaunchism, and we have plans for the so called "Great" Britain :cool:

But now, we're only at war with Portugal.

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And now that WE have naval supremacy, we're able to do THIS :eek:

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Your classic blitzkrieg, only several years after the war started :D

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Now, I did forget to take a picture of the peace window, so I'll highlight the important things here.

Portugal now only has one province in Africa, and has lost their islands that they start the game with. They are no longer allied with Spain, and paid us some good chump change for our troubles.

But, most importantly, WE TOOK BEJA. You know, that province due south of Lisboa? That means we have a direct connection in Iberia.

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We also have a friend for the first time in nearly 150 years! And they're actually pretty strong :)

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Religious map, for those who are curious. Right now, I'm questioning our ability to become the dominant faith, but we've still got about 230 years left, and we've not even TOUCHED admin efficiency OR absolutism yet!

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And we get a really nice event, thanks to having both a master of mint, and a trader as our advisers! Well, HAD them, we fired them for 200 admin and dip mana.

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And now, we declare a holy war on Adal, with the intent of eliminating both them and Ajuuraan from the map.

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And we did just that. It was a boring war, so nothing to see there.

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A quick look in Iberia shows that Spain is in a war with Bohemia. Opportunity is showing itself...

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But before that, we release our newest vassal. We fed the rest of their cores to Malindi, so they only have the one province to start with. As planned.

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And, they have religious ideas filled out, plus their own set of Najd Lite ideas!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
 
The path to Peria is surely nearly open! Just need to "deal" with Arabia :D
 
Chapter 9: Inquisition, Irony, and Irritation

Where we last left off, we had just gotten our first friend in a long, LONG time!

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And now, France seems to have forgotten about us, meaning they want to be our friends as well o_O

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I think that's a bug, I'm 80% sure that all of Europe knew about us, but I could be wrong. But, you know what they say, "don't think about it, you'll live longer" ;)

And, we DID see a rather nice opportunity in Iberia. So, we send our ambassador to Spain with our intentions. And we chose a method of delivery that they will certainly understand, despite a language barrier.

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NOBODY EXPECTS THE ZOROAFRICAN INQUISITION!

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While things LOOK bad, there's some key factors at play here: Spain and Poland are still at war with Bohemia and some Italian minors. Poland cannot get to us, due to lack of access through Germany. And most of the Spanish forces are in Italy and Bohemia, meaning we're got free reign over Iberia.

Also, Dagbon got sieged up in another war, so we peaced them out ASAP. And I mean ASAP, it only took maybe 3 months.

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As proof that our crusade is just, we've become more stable!

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Now, THIS is something I want to bring attention to. Now, maybe I was the only one who didn't know this, but the coastal barrage splendor ability will add 1 siege bonus to INLAND FORTS. Not JUST coastal forts that you blockade. That makes this the SINGLE MOST POWERFUL ABILITY IN THE REFORMATION AGE.

I think it works like this: when a coastal fort isn't blockaded, it gives a -2 malus to siege progress. But, when it IS blockaded, it goes to a 0 "bonus" to siege progress. I'm assuming that the code is something like this: if blockade = 0, then blockade bonus +1. Or, in layman's terms, if the "bonus" is zero, it must be blockaded, therefore it will get the bonus.

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As proof, we breached the walls and took Granada and Toledo in just 1-2 ticks. THAT is how powerful this ability is, with max cannon bonus and a leader with siege abilities, level two forts fall as if it were the late 1600s and on. Theoretically, with this ability, you could siege up any nation with inland forts in a single year, so long as you have the points and troops.

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Meanwhile, Spain is doing the Spanish Shuffle, going back and forth between two french provinces. AI gonna AI :rolleyes:

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This was the longest inland siege we had this entire war.

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But, while I was busy sieging, Spain and Mantau finally made their way into Iberia! We almost, ALMOST crushed Mantau, but then Spain reinforced!

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PUSH THEM BACK!

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REINFORCEMENTS ARE ON THE WAY!

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A painful loss for Spain. Our reinforcements scared them off.

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Meanwhile, the Brits are free to attack us, if they ever get a CB on us.

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And in 1602, Global Trade spawns in the English Channel. Sad, but not unexpected.

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And our vassals are happy they're on scutage. I'm just happy that these cowardly morons aren't costing me warscore.

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Another costly battle, this time it was costly for us...

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...But even more costly for Spain :cool:

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WHO'S STRONGER NOW, HUH?! :mad:

Thanks to our glut of merc infantry, we have manpower to spare. Downside is that reinforcements are costing about 64 ducats a month, making us loan up a bit, but this is fine. Spain has been a thorn in our side, taking them down a couple pegs will save us time and headache in the long run.

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Speaking of pains in our side, Portugal. They're so pathetic now, they're losing colonial lands to CUSCO. In a war that THEY declared. Here's an accurate depiction of how the war went:

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This is an excellent event, as we're going to be taking some Spanish land soon enough, and getting it to be glorious Zoroastrian will be an annoyance.

Also, Poland managed to get 4k to our homeland. I was surprised that Poland even knew what boats were o_O

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And THIS is something we were kinda hoping for. Thanks to this, we'll be able to get Poland out of the war a LOT sooner than we would otherwise.

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All of Iberia is occupied, either by us, or by rebels. We end up needing to kill some of these rebels to get what we want. Still think that makes no sense, but whatever

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We also got our fourth idea group: admin!

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Poland is no longer our problem, and I don't care how their war turns out. They win, that weakens the Ottomans. They lose, and they're not a problem. It's a win-win :)

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I forgot to take pictures of the peace deal, but just know that Spain only has a presence in the new world and Iberia and Italy. We also took a good number of their forts, for exactly 100% OE. And no coalitions.

And, as usual, the Iberian hugbox reformed.

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Here's where we stand, Malindi is looking to be annexed rather soon, which we will get going with soon enough.

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Now, for a good dose of irony: Galicia is our new vassal, and their Zoroastrian. But they just couldn't get rid of their super Catholic flag. :rolleyes:

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They have religious ideas, but we're currently converting for them. Once they have a good base of Zoroastrian land, we'll be able to feed them catholic clay without worry.

I chose Galicia because of their NIs. Between them, Leon, Catalonia, and Aragon, their ideas were the best, with +10% morale of armies and ICA, meaning that IF the ever fight in a war, they'll have some OOMF behind their shots.

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As a result of our war, Spain has 7 loans, while we only have 6. We took 2 before the war, so we could reach our force limit. And the other 4 were due to reinforcements. Later, we're going to swap some of our mercs for manpower infantry, to alleviate that money issue.

But, with 51 possible loans of 555 ducats each, I think we're just fine on the money front, so long as we keep a tab on it.

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Also, here's a rare look at what a Zoroafrican fort WOULD look like.

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Next on our hit list: Madagascar. We've had the chance to fight them for a while, but now we're finally getting to it.

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Tech 16 vs. tech 11. Man, I missed having an obscene advantage in war!

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CRUSHED.

We took their coastline and one province in the middle of the island, for ease of access to each coast.

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And now, it's time to shorten our truce with Spain. We gave all our land from the previous war to Galicia, and put them on scutage.

All I will say now is this: Hindsight is 20/20

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Things look promising to start, Madrid is gonna fall fast. We're saving our mil for the time being, and we JUST got tech 17. So we're a bit strap for points, meaning fewer wall breaches.

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Spain has a larger army in their homeland this time, but they have very few cannons. We're keeping our stacks close together, to keep safe.

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Which is very good, since Spain keeps on trying to smush us! :mad:

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DIE SPAIN, DIE!

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Cutting it close...

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Ouch, a pyrrhic victory. I was hoping to knock Spain out immediately, but even with their capital sieged and their army smashed, they've got -40 reasons for peace.

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We don't have the war goal yet, but we ARE winning our battles.

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This battle is why I added "irritation" to the chapter title. This battle wasn't supposed to happen, and not because it was a mistake on my part. I had a stack here that was supposed to be out a full day before Spain arrived. But, by some magic, they arrived BEFORE we could get out, and I did keep an eye on them the entire time. The sword icon never appeared over the province, meaning that something must have bugged out. I play on slower speeds during these tough wars, to keep an eye on EVERYTHING, so nothing takes us by surprise, which is how I noticed this.

I will come clean here, and say that I did crash the game intentionally, to triple check that things didn't change over the course of those few days (IE: a new, high maneuver leader, magical forced march, units popping up and stalling the movement, that sort of stuff), and in all of my checks, there was NOTHING that seemed to change, and the early battle happened CONSISTENTLY. So, to combat the lying UI, I PREEMPTIVELY moved my other stacks into Badajoz for immediate backup.

I hate having to do stuff like that, but given the circumstances, I hope you all understand. Losing a battle you intended to fight/didn't notice is one thing, but losing a battle that the game assured you wouldn't happen, that's another. :(

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With all the foresight we had, due to magical pixies telling our king, we managed to BARELY eek out a victory.

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And we still had catastrophic losses.

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Spain had, magically, been unsieging their forts in one or two ticks on average, with 24 (TWENTY-FOUR!!) day ticks, while ours were between 39-50 day ticks! I know they have offensive making thing faster for them, but they don't have defensive, or local defensiveness from events. Unless they had a fort defense adviser, this is ridiculous. :mad:

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I didn't bother looking. I was kinda cheesed off at this point. Where do these defensiveness modifiers come from? I know our siege ability is kinda trash, but the others, I'm unsure of.

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2 years and 30 WS to peace out Spain, and I was hoping it would only take 6-14 months and a siege of Madrid. But it took much longer, and with cheating Spain fighting hard to stay in. Irritating, to say the least.

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Now, it's a MUCH easier war. Time to put the screws to Portugal.

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Due to AE, we end up only taking some bus fare, and two of their 3 provinces in Africa. We also annulled their alliance with Spain and took war reparations.

This war was NOT worth the cost, we ended up taking another 4 loans, putting us at 10 total, or 5k in debt. Like I said earlier, this is relatively small, since we can have 51 loans, but still. Big debt for little gain. At this junction, though, we're in for a penny, in for a pound. If we don't kill Spain, they'll declare for Galician land, and these past wars will have been for naught.

I'm contemplating dropping admin ideas, which we haven't even touched yet, for offensive, to try and bridge the gap between our performance and Spain's.

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Also, France had decided that, all of the sudden, they hate our guts. Like, at the drop of a hat, they hate us. I have no idea, they didn't have vital interest in either our land or our vassal's land. But they hate us now. So Austria is our ally now, mostly for their numbers on paper to make our paper numbers look bigger. Morocco's still cool with us, though.

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Meanwhile, we have some rebels to put down. I went a bit overkill, since these have Sakalava's mil tech level (12), while we have 17.

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Case in point.

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Crushed.

Now, I do feel like mistakes were made by taking the fight to Iberia, but at this point, I'm fairly positive that leaving Iberia alone is a terrible idea. Killing Spain has become a priority, and it WILL be costly. Portugal will die to the Incans, and to us, with ease, so they're not a threat. Spain, however, is a big problem. I'd like some input from everyone, in terms of advice. I'm thinking I should try and bankrupt Spain, but I don't know how viable that is, due to their CNs, and their Italian land that I'm not liable to get to. Otherwise, getting their forts and their gold mine in La Mancha is priority number 1.

If I HAVE to abandon Iberia, I'd be focusing on getting the initial goal of Persia, and contemplate forming the Mughals, because I'd "only" get the claims on India.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter.
 

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*scrunches eyes* those borders in Iberia are downright painful ! :D
 
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NOBODY EXPECTS THE ZOROAFRICAN INQUISITION!
A Zoroafrican inquisition joke never fails to amuse.

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This battle is why I added "irritation" to the chapter title. This battle wasn't supposed to happen, and not because it was a mistake on my part. I had a stack here that was supposed to be out a full day before Spain arrived. But, by some magic, they arrived BEFORE we could get out, and I did keep an eye on them the entire time. The sword icon never appeared over the province, meaning that something must have bugged out. I play on slower speeds during these tough wars, to keep an eye on EVERYTHING, so nothing takes us by surprise, which is how I noticed this.

I will come clean here, and say that I did crash the game intentionally, to triple check that things didn't change over the course of those few days (IE: a new, high maneuver leader, magical forced march, units popping up and stalling the movement, that sort of stuff), and in all of my checks, there was NOTHING that seemed to change, and the early battle happened CONSISTENTLY. So, to combat the lying UI, I PREEMPTIVELY moved my other stacks into Badajoz for immediate backup.

I hate having to do stuff like that, but given the circumstances, I hope you all understand. Losing a battle you intended to fight/didn't notice is one thing, but losing a battle that the game assured you wouldn't happen, that's another. :(
I appreciate you're honest, and I definitely agree with you and that this is definitely not abusing/cheating, this is something the game shouldn't be doing so don't feel bad for it.
 
Now, THIS is something I want to bring attention to. Now, maybe I was the only one who didn't know this, but the coastal barrage splendor ability will add 1 siege bonus to INLAND FORTS. Not JUST coastal forts that you blockade. That makes this the SINGLE MOST POWERFUL ABILITY IN THE REFORMATION AGE.

wait... what?

This battle is why I added "irritation" to the chapter title. This battle wasn't supposed to happen, and not because it was a mistake on my part. I had a stack here that was supposed to be out a full day before Spain arrived. But, by some magic, they arrived BEFORE we could get out, and I did keep an eye on them the entire time. The sword icon never appeared over the province, meaning that something must have bugged out. I play on slower speeds during these tough wars, to keep an eye on EVERYTHING, so nothing takes us by surprise, which is how I noticed this.

yeah, weird.

seen it happen also.

Spain had, magically, been unsieging their forts in one or two ticks on average, with 24 (TWENTY-FOUR!!) day ticks, while ours were between 39-50 day ticks! I know they have offensive making thing faster for them, but they don't have defensive, or local defensiveness from events. Unless they had a fort defense adviser, this is ridiculous. :mad:

the spanish defensiveness is from 5 year pulse defensive idea group event (10 year +25% defense on forts and the other is from fortification event. I think.

2 years and 30 WS to peace out Spain, and I was hoping it would only take 6-14 months and a siege of Madrid. But it took much longer, and with cheating Spain fighting hard to stay in. Irritating, to say the least.

could have released a stray nation in the Kongo or in any culture you accept culture from.. You should really learn to consider that option.. only you can reconquer it, so why not do it?

I'm contemplating dropping admin ideas, which we haven't even touched yet, for offensive, to try and bridge the gap between our performance and Spain's.

bad idea. what you need is more artillery, and 100 spy networks on all nations you want to take 100 provinces from. It would only be worth it if you are 10 years ahead of time in mil tech. On the contrary, i'd go for the first three in admin asap. Cheaper mercs ftw. And then use excess mil points on artillery barrages.

Crushed.

Now, I do feel like mistakes were made by taking the fight to Iberia, but at this point, I'm fairly positive that leaving Iberia alone is a terrible idea. Killing Spain has become a priority, and it WILL be costly. Portugal will die to the Incans, and to us, with ease, so they're not a threat. Spain, however, is a big problem. I'd like some input from everyone, in terms of advice. I'm thinking I should try and bankrupt Spain, but I don't know how viable that is, due to their CNs, and their Italian land that I'm not liable to get to. Otherwise, getting their forts and their gold mine in La Mancha is priority number 1.

I would go for Mali now, grab their gold coast provinces and all the gold. At the same time, hit Air and Kanem Bornu.

IF you want to hit Spain and Portugal, consider doing the absolutism disaster FIRST by going to 50 absolutism, and then hit 'm with help of France after you maxed it out.

But if they are weak, keep hammering them non stop, especially during their wars. With enough artillery and mercs, you can beat Iberia into pulp non stop.

France as ally won't care for AE, and you'll have to go pretty nuts to get coalition range from the rest.
 
I appreciate you're honest, and I definitely agree with you and that this is definitely not abusing/cheating, this is something the game shouldn't be doing so don't feel bad for it.

yeah, weird.

seen it happen also.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one that experienced this, and that you understand.

wait... what?

Yeah, it looks like the Coastal Barrage splendor ability affects inland forts as well. And since inland forts cannot be un-blockaded, they get the +1 to the siege. I'm fairly certain that this isn't WAD, but on the other hand, it allows for much, MUCH faster wars.

the spanish defensiveness is from 5 year pulse defensive idea group event (10 year +25% defense on forts and the other is from fortification event. I think.

I thought that may have been the case, but Spain only has offensive as a military idea group, the others are expansion, exploration, and economic.

could have released a stray nation in the Kongo or in any culture you accept culture from.. You should really learn to consider that option.. only you can reconquer it, so why not do it?

I tried that, several times during the war. They weren't having any of it, giant malus of "does not want part of the peace deal" prevented me from using that as an exit route.

bad idea. what you need is more artillery, and 100 spy networks on all nations you want to take 100 provinces from. It would only be worth it if you are 10 years ahead of time in mil tech. On the contrary, i'd go for the first three in admin asap. Cheaper mercs ftw. And then use excess mil points on artillery barrages.

Yeah, I was leaning more towards taking offensive at admin 18, and work on swarming my enemies like we're Russia. Only thought of switching around because I hadn't touched the ideas yet, and wanted some input. But, seeing how we're about 50% mercs, the cheaper merc idea will save us oodles of dosh, and let us field an even larger army later on.

I would go for Mali now, grab their gold coast provinces and all the gold. At the same time, hit Air and Kanem Bornu.

IF you want to hit Spain and Portugal, consider doing the absolutism disaster FIRST by going to 50 absolutism, and then hit 'm with help of France after you maxed it out.

But if they are weak, keep hammering them non stop, especially during their wars. With enough artillery and mercs, you can beat Iberia into pulp non stop.

France as ally won't care for AE, and you'll have to go pretty nuts to get coalition range from the rest.

I'll need to look at the political climate of Africa, since Morocco tends to ally in that area. I'm going to be finishing off Adal (spawned from rebels in another nation) and feed them to ajuuraan real quick while I get my troops to the African coast.

I've been working towards the Court and Country disaster, albeit slowly. 4 absolutism atm, look out world :rolleyes:

Unfortunately, France just started hating my guts during my second war in Iberia, for no reason whatsoever. We didn't take any land they wanted, and they have a diplomatic ruler. Then they broke the alliance and put many provinces in S. Africa in the "vital interest" category. I think it may have been because they colonized some of the African coast that I didn't care about, I don't know. Which is why I allied with Austria, since we couldn't get the Ottomans to like us enough.

And the only coalition I'm worried about is from the Iberians, and the remainders from my wars in Africa (Yemen, Sakalava, etc) putting us over the magical "4 nation" limit. And I'm leaving Yemen alone on purpose. They're guaranteed by Persia, who is allied to Bahmanis. Once I'm ready to destroy Persia, I'll DOW Yemen to drag in Persia, break their alliance with Bahmanis, then hit them hard and fast a few years later.
 
Chapter 10: (Mali's the) Rebel in Disguise

Where we last left off, we were dealing with issues in the heart of our nation, and while we're there, why don't we take out some of the minor annoyances along the way?

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Adal died super fast, not much to show in this "war".

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And we've committed to admin ideas. After re-evaluating the ideas, and a helpful reminder from @atwix about the merc cost and interest reduction ideas, I realized how shortsighted it would be to drop the group for offensive. So for now, we're going to be putting our Iberian conquests on hold for now.

But, I would like to add one major goal to this run, making it the new "number two objective": Remove Spain and Portugal from Iberia, if not from the map entirely. After that last war, I've decided that they MUST go, and that is more important than making Zoroastrian the most followed religion in the world (although the two goals do intersect a bit, in that any conquered land will be converted).

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Here's our peace deal, and the reason we've been a bit cautious about our expansion. While there's not many, we DO have 4 nations that could form a coalition if we were to leave one out of truce. Sakalava will be removed soon enough, which leaves just the Iberians, and Yeman to deal with.

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Russia actually won against the Ottomans, which shocked me for two reasons. 1, they're THE Ottomans, and 2, the Russo-Turkish hugbox didn't form :eek:

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While we're working on getting our power base up (including absolutism), our focus turns to northern Africa. While Mali is the main goal, eating this minor schmuck will give us a route to two of Mali's empty forts, making for a simpler war in the future.

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And now that it's been about 250 years since the union started, Sweden has finally grown sick of the Danes and whatever diseases they may have. Or maybe they asked for a breakfast danish and the king took offense :rolleyes:

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Bonoman had no troops, so we steamrolled them. And here, only two people care. Portugal only cares because they have a colony just south of Air.

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Now, it's time for Mali. We have 3 levels of mil tech on them. I smell a steamroll coming...

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And even better, we don't need to drag our ally, Morocco, into some pointless war against the Knights or someone else tiny and inconsequential.

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Thanks to superior positioning, and forced march, we were able to take two of Mali's forts in a single month. The rest of their forts were either paid for, or too far away to get swiped before they could get people inside :(

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And this is somewhat concerning, but only in that we could have them declare for one of our many gold provinces on the coast. I don't expect them to get any significant amount of troops down to Africa, and they don't have the ability to claim any of Galicia's land (the only coastal province Galicia has is Galicia itself).

Still, dastardly frogs abandoned us for no reason whatsoever. :mad:

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We've got most of Mali's forts sieged up at this point, we're just getting the capital done before we move in for the kill.

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And now, we're able to core for a LOT cheaper. Usually, Admin is one of my first idea groups taken, but since this was a more unusual campaign, I had to move it back a bit. Oh well, at least things were shaken up a bit.

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I like this event, it paid for two of our loans in one fell swoop :)

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We're still sieging up Mali, and Air jumped on Mali as well, having smelt the blood in the air (ironic, since we hadn't been able to catch the Malian army once. We DID smash up their navy, though!)

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This is our peace deal. Coalition members don't matter, since we have a truce with most of them. We got all but one of Mali's gold mines, thanks to Air sneaking in and getting it sieged up before I could notice :mad:

At least we were planning on eating all of Africa, or at least the non-berber lands.

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Thanks to our recent conquest, we're FINALLY able to call ourselves an Empire!

GIMME DAT FANCY CROWN!

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This is something I love about the provinces with small rebel counts. It doesn't matter if they revolt, they will NEVER be able to take the colony and damage it, due to tropical attrition. And, as far as I'm aware, you cannot get two native revolts on the same province, at the same time. Meaning we have our own defenders in the Andamans!

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This is, well, it's less good. This puts Persia as our immediate target, after several decades/a century of bouncing back and forth around the globe. Otherwise, we're facing the Ottomans as the end game boss. Not something I'm unfamiliar with, but it's always nice to avoid it if possible.

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But, before then, we need to make sure that the Iberians are weakened before their hugbox reforms. Time for a casual crusade!

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Meanwhile, Sweden does something for once. More like the kitten of the north, seeing how they took their sweet time getting free.

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This actually scared me for a second. I wasn't expecting, or prepared for the Spanish army, seeing as I thought they weren't allied with Portugal. Well, it turns out they weren't, they were just at war with Kanem Bornu, because of some colonial scuffle. I felt pretty silly after I realized what was going on :oops:

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And our king finally died, and our godly heir took the throne. The pretender rebel was ALSO godly, oddly enough, but I ended up axing them, because of absolutism. Even though we've only got 6, absolutism is absolutism.

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And our heir was hot trash, so we sent him out on a fishing boat, into the Atlantic.

Did I mention the boat was riddled with holes? ;)

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This was our peace deal with Portugal. We're slowly making our way down their coastline, so we can box them in and keep them from colonizing more than they already have. We fed the land to Galicia, to make them big and strong.

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Also, I HATE this modifier. I'm not usually one to call for things to be changed, but this really should. The AI is almost NEVER caught, even if you use counter-espionage, meaning that from 1620 onwards, you've got -1 legitimacy and 2 unrest EVERYWHERE. Either make the penalty less, last for a shorter period of time, or have the AI use it less. Losing 2+ diplomats to counter this modifier is simply ridiculous.

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And the Iberians got their alliance back. Oh well, we still took Portugal's land without a single battle being fought.

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This was a godsend, even though it only affected 3 provinces. I'll take fewer rebellions wherever I can!

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We also loaned up a few times to embrace global trade, since it would have taken too long to let it spread more naturally.

And thanks to earlier spending, we have a couple of manufactries built already. We just need some in our more developed lands. Nothing a loan or four can't solve!

P.S - we're being careful with our loans, to avoid bankrupting while having many a neighbor who hates us.

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And speaking of, one of our loans were paid off right after embracing the institution, thanks to the ITC decision!

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And we're still moving down the admin idea group, for our last money-saving idea from the set. With it, we gained ~5 ducats a month. AND our galleys fight even better now! AND AND we can hire female generals! :rolleyes:

If you look at Mali, you'll see some rebels own a couple provinces. Those are our rebels, we exported them to Mali for an absolutely insane price of free. Our newly conquered land is quite revolting, hence the chapter name (in addition to being able to make yet another reference-based chapter name).

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With Persia now in our sights, we use our vassal's claim to eat Oman. I feel kinda bad, since I played as Oman for the Arabian Coffee + Third Way achievements, but Owell, letting them live would just be a bad Oman.

...OK I'll stop.

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We've occupied Socotra, and our king celebrated by having a kid! I'm sure that's how it works, you win a siege, then go down to the local market and get a kid to celebrate!

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REBEL REBEL, YOUR FACE IS A MESS!

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And more bad events from the bad event god!

But, maybe it's fitting, seeing how we're behind on paper and bird techs...

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We ate Oman, and took their money. I'm actually shocked that they had 316 ducats. I was expecting maybe 30, tops :eek:

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And now, Malindi is a thing of the past. We're now in control of almost all of the east African coast! Just a bit of the horn isn't ours. Yet!

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And do I LOVE the free cores! I gave Malindi the expensive cores for this reason alone. Plus, it gives us some land to lower autonomy in for absolutism!

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A look at the world circa 1629.

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Unfortunately, we're a bit behind in almost everything I'd usually be acing at this point. Absolutism is super low, and while we've one of the largest force limits in the world, we're still nowhere near 200. And thanks to tanking tech, we can't be considered "multicultural", so we're going to be getting these bonuses kinda late.

And I do want some ideas on getting absolutism higher. I'm spending a decent amount suppressing rebels, thanks to the Iberian spies, and what I don't spend either goes into tech or ideas, and after that it goes into strengthening the government. The issue is that, unfortunately, we don't have the best capacity to lower autonomy everywhere, due to lack of states and a lack of - unrest modifiers. I want to get tech 19 ASAP, given how pivotal that one tech difference is, so I don't want to dump too many points into getting absolutism higher. I really wish I had made one "supervassal" for post-integration autonomy lowering, but oh well.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
 
Africa is truly your playground now.
 
This is our peace deal. Coalition members don't matter, since we have a truce with most of them. We got all but one of Mali's gold mines, thanks to Air sneaking in and getting it sieged up before I could notice :mad:

got to micro that better! ;)

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This is, well, it's less good. This puts Persia as our immediate target, after several decades/a century of bouncing back and forth around the globe. Otherwise, we're facing the Ottomans as the end game boss. Not something I'm unfamiliar with, but it's always nice to avoid it if possible.

you could do same as in my stream campaign as paté, and form mughals still, and become tributary of Ming... with capital in europe... and go revolutionary after 1710.



P.S - we're being careful with our loans, to avoid bankrupting while having many a neighbor who hates us.

i'd loan up max now, build all workshops, churches, manufactories, manpower and force limit buildings EVERYWHERE, and then go bankrupt FIVE YEARS AFTER BUILDING LAST BUILDING (write the date down!) after dragging all allies into war on some easy target. After bankruptcy, accept particuralist demands, and do mass - autonomy in all your state provinces. Go to 50 absolutism with this, then do disaster for more absolutism limit.

after that, steamroll asia, west africa.

And I do want some ideas on getting absolutism higher. I'm spending a decent amount suppressing rebels, thanks to the Iberian spies, and what I don't spend either goes into tech or ideas, and after that it goes into strengthening the government. The issue is that, unfortunately, we don't have the best capacity to lower autonomy everywhere, due to lack of states and a lack of - unrest modifiers. I want to get tech 19 ASAP, given how pivotal that one tech difference is, so I don't want to dump too many points into getting absolutism higher. I really wish I had made one "supervassal" for post-integration autonomy lowering, but oh well.

see above.

particularist rebels lower autonom in all your states. not sure if peasants increase it everywhere.. accept demands, then do mass autonomy revoke. it"s what i did in my pate campaign, worked wonders.

an advanced way of doing this would be declaring bankruptcy AFTER lowering autonomy everywhere, AFTER peasant and particularist or zealot rebels occupied ALL your land. the occupied land will spawn MORE peasants/zealots/whatever, and you can survive bankruptcy unrest like that with said scapegoat war. you cannot collapse to rebels while at war.

do NOT be afraid of attack during a bankruptcy; if a coaliton cannot form you are safe, even when portugal or spain or france come knocking. you can easily stall the war longer then the bankruptcy, or give up some worthless land to reconquer.

if you got full manpower pool, you can even kill most rebels by just sending two or three stacks at them until they die. heck, if you got good morale bonuses, you might have same morale as rebels during a bankruptcy.

hope that helps.

but i don't know if using controlled bankruptcy is your thing :)
 
i'd loan up max now, build all workshops, churches, manufactories, manpower and force limit buildings EVERYWHERE, and then go bankrupt FIVE YEARS AFTER BUILDING LAST BUILDING (write the date down!) after dragging all allies into war on some easy target. After bankruptcy, accept particuralist demands, and do mass - autonomy in all your state provinces. Go to 50 absolutism with this, then do disaster for more absolutism limit.

after that, steamroll asia, west africa.

Huh, never even thought about particularists for autonomy. That's some outside the box thinking, I like that.

see above.

particularist rebels lower autonom in all your states. not sure if peasants increase it everywhere.. accept demands, then do mass autonomy revoke. it"s what i did in my pate campaign, worked wonders.

an advanced way of doing this would be declaring bankruptcy AFTER lowering autonomy everywhere, AFTER peasant and particularist or zealot rebels occupied ALL your land. the occupied land will spawn MORE peasants/zealots/whatever, and you can survive bankruptcy unrest like that with said scapegoat war. you cannot collapse to rebels while at war.

do NOT be afraid of attack during a bankruptcy; if a coaliton cannot form you are safe, even when portugal or spain or france come knocking. you can easily stall the war longer then the bankruptcy, or give up some worthless land to reconquer.

if you got full manpower pool, you can even kill most rebels by just sending two or three stacks at them until they die. heck, if you got good morale bonuses, you might have same morale as rebels during a bankruptcy.

hope that helps.

but i don't know if using controlled bankruptcy is your thing :)

Ok, this is kinda embarrassing, but I forgot about controlled bankruptcy, even though I've already used it once. I need to get out of the habit of seeing bankruptcy as this horrible, decade long thing where your troops have no morale, since that's changed.

My only concern is for my iberian holdings/vassal. Other than that, bankruptcy is a decent idea, especially considering my loan size and amounts. Getting the next institution spread via the factories will be a boon.
 
they MUST go
Hmm, where did I hear that again today...

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Meanwhile, Sweden does something for once. More like the kitten of the north, seeing how they took their sweet time getting free.
LOL at that independence for Cleves + kittens are good (and cute).

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Also, I HATE this modifier.
I agree, this modifier is just there to annoy the player, I don't even think AI does this to other AI, you can't do anything against it and you don't even know for sure who is doing it. Nothing good comes from this, they should just plain remove that feature.

AND AND we can hire female generals! :rolleyes:
Don't underestimate girl power!

With Persia now in our sights, we use our vassal's claim to eat Oman. I feel kinda bad, since I played as Oman for the Arabian Coffee + Third Way achievements, but Owell, letting them live would just be a bad Oman.

...OK I'll stop.
Don't stop, I like it ;).

After bankruptcy, accept particuralist demands, and do mass - autonomy in all your state provinces. Go to 50 absolutism with this, then do disaster for more absolutism limit.
Isn't that some sort of an exploit though? Sounds a bit cheesy to me.

I need to get out of the habit of seeing bankruptcy as this horrible, decade long thing where your troops have no morale, since that's changed.
They reduced the time to 5 so that makes it even better.
 
Isn't that some sort of an exploit though? Sounds a bit cheesy to me.

it's clever use of WAD ingame mechanics.

not an exploit in my book.

but i do consider it cheesy :)
 
it's clever use of WAD ingame mechanics.

not an exploit in my book.

but i do consider it cheesy :)

I'd call it "thinking outside the box". I mean, is there anything sweeter than rebels doing GOOD things for your nation?