Chapter 13: Morocco is Absolutely Flawless
Where we last left off, we were destroying Yemen's hopes of an alliance with the Turks. Although, even if they DID get the alliance, I doubt it would do them any good.
One of the rare times when I get this event and could actually use both prestige AND legitimacy. Well worth the price.
Die Yemen, die!
Get outta here.
In the peace deal, we end up taking most of their land that's connected to any other countries. In hindsight, we should have cut them off entirely from Persia and the Turks, but I didn't want to lose my indirect war with Persia, since I think guarantees only work if the AI is bordering the nation.
In other news, we have the second largest army on earth, behind Ming, of course.
I've actually never seen this mission before. I'd take it, but it's not really worth the cost and time it'd take. We'd rather get the manpower recovery from taking Luanda.
Man, conquest is easy-peasy!
Next, to make sure our war exhaustion and unrest don't drop too low, we declare war on Sakalava. Time to put them out of our misery.
Tech 20 vs tech 13. Any questions?
Next is the 3rd best ability of the Absolutism age. Worth its weight in gold if you don't have ideas that reduce unrest/separatism, which we don't. Otherwise, the -50% cooldown time for lowering autonomy is better, IMO.
Now, I want to highlight Cusco for a minute. They've beaten the Europeans in every war I've seen them in, so I went to see their tech. 12. They're on mil tech 12. Here's how I think these wars go.
Europeans - "Take their gold, kill them all!"
Cusco - "We have spears of sharp rock and shields made of leopard hides!"
Europeans - "Mary, Joseph and Jesus, these guys are nuts! RUN AWAY!"
I'm fairly certain that's EXACTLY how it goes.
Huh. I thought Spain was always our rival. Huh. Weird.
Now we own the entirety of Madagascar. In turn, we also own all of the Zanzibar trade node, finally! Now we just need to get Indonesia dealt with, but that'll come later. Right now, we have bigger things on our plate.
With some manipulation of our rivals (we removed France, since Milan has them as an ally, and replaced them with Ming, who no one we care about is allied to), we reclaimed our alliance with Milan. Our old buddy, Milan! Man, we go waaaaaaay back! I remember when they backstabbed me, fun times.
And just in time, too. Things were going swimmingly, until...
SPAIN, you rotten swine!
And Ottomans, you traitorous she-dog!
I really wish you could control who you call into defensive wars, instead of just automatically calling in everyone. I'd have left out the Turks, since I knew they'd never help me.
A look at the numbers of each side, for those who are interested. I'm actually surprised that we have more troops, given that Poland joined.
Also, Milan has redeemed themselves in my eyes. So yeah, they're cool. Morocco is cool, too.
This is very nice, but we're going to hold off on taking the stab for just another month. I hear you asking "why do that?", to which I have to say "how on earth did you get in my house?! I JUST changed the locks, too! Get out before I call the cops!"
This is why we waited, just in case the extra stab would have put us out of the range for the disaster to start. And since we're going to be getting a plethora of events that give us absolutism, we go for the - unrest option. It'll save us a LOT of headaches in the long run, since this disaster will run for, at minimum, 10 years.
Morocco's already going to work in Iberia. Go Morocco, go!
So is Milan! I'm... at a loss. Our allies are... DOING THINGS?! I'm flabbergasted, usually they just sit there and lose battles!
Also,
@Tom D., this screenshot should really intrigue you. 69k spaniards sitting in Valencia, while Morocco sieges down Granada. At least it's not 5% attrition.
But look, Spain is trying to alleviate the siege! 2k men is a LOT of people, you know
Now, I'm not going to show every event for the Court and Country disaster. If you've never experienced it, just know that most are like this.
Also, this kinda confuses me. No nation has a core on this land, yet there are Najdi separatists. AFAIK, Najd never had control of this land, Shammar did.
Rebels popped due to unrest from lowering autonomy. 150k rebels seems REALLY EXCESSIVE, though. That's a full 25k more than our max force limit
We peace out Mantau, and to show our appreciation, we give Milan one of their provinces, and the vast majority of their treasury. NOTE: this didn't give them any favors with us, which I found odd. Oh well.
Here's the other event that happens often. I chose the manpower, since we're running low from fighting all these rebellions. We're slowly replacing half of our infantry with mercs, but that's a slow process.
Seriously, Morocco, you're the bomb, mate!
I think I found a new country to put on my "AI countries I like" list.
Meanwhile, Milan is doing work in Naples, and Poland is counter-sieging them.
Look! Troops are being transported! I mean, 4k is pretty substantial, right?
Here's the reason we're not up in Iberia, kicking Spanish teeth in. We've got our army spread out strategically to deal with any uprisings from events.
Wow, after 3 years, Spain FINALLY took the war goal!
Oh, never mind. Morocco's got this.
Spain's main army is FINALLY on the move. I mean, good lord that took forever.
The funniest thing is, they split up to take back some of the lands, but once Morocco came back, they ran back to Valencia. Dunno why, but it was pretty funny to see.
Usually, this event is kinda useless to me, but given the situation, we gladly take the extra unrest reduction, price be damned.
Spanish Italy is pretty much all sieged up, and Morocco is getting back to work on Iberia.
Also, the Turks hate us because we have a single province they want. Maybe if we sell it to them, we'll be cool again. But really, that was out of left field.
Milan ended up surrendering for an annulment of our alliance, but they'll gladly have us back. I mean, we DID give them Mantau, after all
Morocco, hard at work. They're truly the MVP here, hence why they get their own chapter named after their exploits.
Spain FINALLY landed in Africa. Too bad it's the part I couldn't care any less about
Morocco is knocking on Madrid's door. This is too good. We could peace out at any time, but we want to BREAK the Spanish as much as we can.
Ah, now I see why Spain went to Africa. They wanted to suffer more attrition than they could suffer in Valencia. Uh, great tactic, guys
This is our peace deal. We didn't give anything to Morocco, since I didn't want to. But we DID take two of Spain's level 6 forts, so future wars will be much more swift.
Don't worry, Morocco, I'll actually do work in the next war you drag me into, you deserve that much, at least
Galicia, home of Europe's ugliest border!
More wars won by Cusco. Just to prove my point I made earlier.
And, just as suddenly as they decided to hate us, the Turks decided that they love us. I just don't care anymore, just give me this pitiful excuse of an alliance.
OK, I'm really confused now, Najd now has a core where they had none before. I know rebels are really, REALLY stupid this patch, but jeez!
We're at the target mark for absolutism, have been for a while now. We just need a few more years to pass.
I find this really funny. Spain just lost a war against us (well, Morocco. We were giving words of encouragement from the Congo), so of course they can take the Brits!
BTW, GB peaced out with France for a white peace right as this happened.
SPAIN! You are going to die, no doubt about it!
It looks like you CAN learn as to who is sowing discontent. Only way to stop that is to kill them, AFAIK.
Milan still wants that alliance, just five more years, buddy!
And we've ended our disaster, exactly 10 years since the screenshot I took of it starting. We've now a max absolutism of 107, and that's with 60 legitimacy. So once we get to 100, we should have 115, if my math is right.
I think I'll end off with the religion tab of the ledger. Zoroastrian is the third most popular religion in the world, and will keep growing more popular as time goes on.
In the next chapter, I think we're taking trip to the east indies, I heard they have these great spices!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter!