TO D&T AAR (Rise Of The Acronyms)

[Buckmeister]

So …

Defeating Byzantium is much easier now.

Time to reclaim some german cores.

I declared on Aachen too.

Fourteen moths after declaring on Byzantium:

My ruler died.

Sibir revolted away. This will be a 4 BB province, but I'm burning BB faster than I can get it.

I only have two BB earning theaters right now. Each declaration against the Orthodox tends to bring in the other ones. Also, right now Muscovy's coastal provinces are occupied by Portugal. I'm afraid that declaring on Muscovy will make them cede provinces to Portugal. i don't want that!


Anyhow:

Aachen is gone:

Did I mention that I declared on Ulm too?

And Bavaria means peace.

The GH is good for some BB.

No battles to note here. All frost were assaulted quickly.

They are reduced to their capital and Asian GH.

Portugal and Muscovy are still at war. Byzantium is also at war. Bulgaria and Serbia are fighting each other. I might as well expand in India:

As long as I'm at full maintenance:

That "Invest in Textile Manufacturing" decision is bothering me. 4000 ducats for 1 base tax and province changing to produce cloth? It's not worth it to me. Unfortunately, it makes it impossible for me to see when new decisions are available. I'll take it and the Gold Standard.

Wurttemburg is a hold over from the Bavarian war. I'm hoping forcing them to convert from reformed will let me annex them without fighting England.

Tirol joins the German Noble Republic.

And I make peace with Deccan.

I could have kept fighting them, but Portugal made a WP with Muscovy. I immediately took what I could from Deccan. Hopefully I can move troops around and burn some WE before Muscovy gets attacked again.

 

[Ashantai]

Nice progress. You're on a roll now, and once you get rid of that idiot prince and get a better one everything will be going perfectly.

 

[Buckmeister]

Nice progress. You're on a roll now, and once you get rid of that idiot prince and get a better one everything will be going perfectly.

Actually, no. I'm working on the next update now. It probably won't be done until tomorrow because I've got a lot going on and I won't to discuss a few things in more depth during this update, but I feel like I am floundering badly in the next update.

All of the changes from Vanilla HTTT to DW+D&T have worked in my favor so far. Specifically, managing the economy has been much easier. That is still true, but I'm finding military aspects of this game more difficult to control.

I've never claimed to be an excellent EUIII player. To be an excellent player you must understand the mechanics behind the game in detail. I've always preferred just playing the game and seeing what happened. This next series of wars has not changed that outlook. I am still too lazy to research the mechanics. After this update, I will change my strategies. If they don't work, I will try something else.

 

[Buckmeister]

I don't think I mentioned my DoW on Murom:

Most of Asia was revealed to me:

The entire world is rapidly appearing before my eyes. I hired a conquistador and then:

I'm not sure about this. The stab investment hit seems more severe than I remember. I think I can overcome the Papal influence modifier. In the end, I loved the tech modifiers too much.


April 1608:

November 1609:

I also seized 4 colonies in Eastern Muscovy. They were all fairly well developed and I gained no infamy for seizing them. My path to the Pacific is now clear and my last conquistador was sent with a 4 cavalry army to explore as much as he can before dying.

Sweden had some of my cores and my full strength army was in the area so …

Now that's a ruler:

I had the straight of Stockholm blocked so the main Swedish force had to march all the way around. I guess the marching toughened them up.

This was actually the Third Battle of Savolax. I had attacked them with three arnies in rapid succession, the first two had generals. I lost all three battles and gained lots more WE so …

It would have been nice to force release somebody, but no biggie.


Two years later:

I figured this would be easy. It's 1612, I have beaten Deccan twice. I have superior Western troops and some pretty decent generals.

This confused me a little bit. I know I was outnumbered, but I have run over Indian troops easily in other games. Then I realized … Deccan is not Indian are they? They are Shiite thus Muslim right!

I was also bothered by the amount of upper level forts in the area. This I do attribute to a change, probably a D&T change.


I also re-opened conflict in Europe:

I am really getting tired of Denmark, but nobody in this alliance can bother me.


Deccan threw stack after stack at me. The easy economic model that has helped me so much has obviously helped my enemies too.

I had no choice. I can not build and transport troops to that front quickly enough.

I need a land connection to India. More than that I need to surround Deccan. I will look for Asian opportunities.

Once upon a time I feared Austria. Now they are a OPM that exists only in Treviso.

Take a core:

I need some BB and this seems to be the easiest way to get some. Albania and Serbia are both Byzantium vassals.

At least I can defeat the Byzantines.

New mission:

No problem. I am at war with them and I want to convert them.


I have fallen to 0 BB. That is definitely not the plan, But I can't make these fortresses fall! It's as if I am beating my head against a WE creating wall. My working theory again rests on how easy it is for me to maintain inflation. If the AI has kept inflation low also, its defensiveness should be higher, right? In any case, I must reorganize my armies before the next series of wars. I need larger assault forces and quicker strike forces.

First though I need some BB.

I'm not worried about Muscovy. They have been beaten so many times that they have no economy. Three capital moves and a completely divided empire.

Byzantium peace:

Corfu was a high value CoT.


Four years of sieging by a 4/8/8 army combined with several assaults and Ansbach fell. The new mission was not so bad.

Somewhere in there I made peace with The Mamluks also. I took my core and a full value province that gave me another border with England. At the time, I had 0 BB so it made sense.


Let's make a couple more peaces:

I said I felt like i was floundering. That's not completely accurate. My mistake was that I assumed too much. I will change my military strategy. I will try to do battle more quickly. I will also will return to leaving 4 unit siege forces while assaulting with a HUGE force. Hopefully, a large enough army will be able to storm some of these forts in one attack. I cannot waste a 16 unit army on a siege that lasts 5 years.

 

[Buckmeister]

So … As I recall my plan was to mass troops together so that I could assault fortresses and defeat my enemies.

And, I was interested in opening a second front in India …

I need to beat up on somebody.

Confidence is rising.

I'm getting even mored tired of Denmark.

"Republican Dictatorship" sounds more German than "Noble Republic."

Slightly over a month after the DoW:

Immediate assault by ginormous doomstacks did the trick.

I will remain at war with Denmark for a while. They are a problem.


Another core:

I need BB. I have a BB reducing mission.

Brabant is allied with Switzerland, and is guaranteeing Gelre. Immediately after going to war with Switzerland I declared.


In July of 1620 I made peace with Morocco.

They lead the PU with Dehli. I could have gotten more provinces if Dehli was not in a PU, but I have other places to spend my BB now.

Ok, not there.

Not there either.

There's one place. I thought I would be annexing Brabant, but they have fully developed colonies in Green land. Not going there, so i made peace.


The vassalization of Gelre gave me an interesting new mission:

Oh, by the way, I declared on Muscovy again too:

I have cores on two of their provinces. I will take them for free, then annex under a different CB.


Muscovy is dead.

 

[Buckmeister]

September of 1624, Murom is DAed before the next round of wars start.

First on the list is Denmark.

I don't really want Danish territory, but I'm sick of them.

I must fight a BB free war at the same time:

Byzantium can no longer fight. 11 months after the war started, it ends.

I made peace with Denmark at the same time:

In April of 1629 I attacked Bihar for BB and Indian expansion,

while attacking Bulgaria for cores.

Bihar tried to put up a fight, but they were severely outclassed.

Both wars ended quickly. My mega stack assaults are working well against upper level forts.

I had been building troop levels on the French front in preparation for war with them. I want my Swiss cores, but Switzerland is in the French SoI.

France declined to join the war, so I quickly attacked the Oirat Horde.

This is not the ideal war, but I need BB. Perhaps it will be a long winding road to connect India to the rest of my Germany.


I went ahead and attacked Ayutthaya for my core.

Without France protecting them, the Swiss were doomed.

The Ayutthayanitions actually put up a decent fight. I did not have enough troops committed to the theater and their stack wiped out a couple of my small armies. I would have taken a WP, but it was impossible.

Then Pegu fell:

I had attacked Ansbach too.

The Horde could do nothing against me and their forts crumbled quickly in the face of small siege forces.

A core on Alexandria is interesting, but I'm not ready to attack England.

I am ready to return the Pope to Rome.

 

[Buckmeister]

Since I have remained Catholic and I have been given a mission, I will return to my original side quest. The plan is to first return Rome to the Pope.

I could have taken Rome for 0 BB, but I want more. I had MA from everyone around them. They do have some colonies, but most of them are small islands grouped together. They are all province level. They have one 31 unit stack parked on one island. My fleet can bottle them up while I begin small sieges on all other islands. They have an isolated colony in North America. It will be seized.

Their continental army did not resist.

In July of 1636 I go after my Muscovite cores.

4 months later …

2 months later the final war with Bulgaria begins.

Nineteen months after declaring on Naples:

The new mission is not that great.

Bulgaria ceases to exist in August of 1638.

Another NI:

I wanted either the espionage one or an extra colonist one, but it didn't seem right to not take the military one.


Germany returns to war in March of 1641.

I declared on OPM Pisa at the same time.

They brought in Naples. Other than blockading their islands and overrunning Napoli, I ignored them and began a 16 unit siege of Pisa. Florence is being sieged by France and Venice is irrelevant.


Alexandria revolted away to The Mamluks:

The "battle" of Cairo:

The Syrians joined The Mamluks and caused some initial concern, but I simply transported another stack to the area.

As long as I'm fighting:

I'm burning BB at an average of 3.5 to 3.8. I have to get grab huge chunks of BB at a time or I would never be at peace, or I would be at O BB.

That war lasted 5 months.


Here you see the war with The Knights. They have a large stack on Rhodes. I'm going to just keep it there and siege away everything else.

Urbino held out for slightly more than a year.

The siege of Pisa is going nowhere. My WE isn't rising either so I might as well have another war.

My mistake here was not realizing the Friesland leads a PU with Byzantium.

I took a huge bite out of The Knights and got yet another border with Persia.


I'm still at war with Pisa and the Friesland coalition, but that is only siege warfare at this point. I've been at war for three years and have next to no WE.

 

[Buckmeister]

It seems like I've begun several updates with a DA:

I declared on Byzantium thinking that I could annex them. Stupid me didn't realize they were in a PU. There's only one way to break the PU:

I went to war with Pisa in March, 1641. Over 5 1/2 years later my 16 unit siege force has made very little progress.

As long as I'm at war …

Fighting in India is much much harder than fighting in Europe.

WE builds so much more quickly. Morale seems to vanish into thin air. But Germany will not be denied. First Pisa,

Then a Deccan peace.

That will max out my BB giving me a break from war for a while.

I waited four years before starting another war.

France has been at war with Switzerland since well before my last war started. I infiltrated Administration then supported nationalists and pretenders successfully four times in provinces far away from my border. I watched the French stacks move toward the rebels before declaring.

They are in worse shape than I thought. My plan was to destroy the armies in their Italian/Austrian provinces and begin sieging.

In France their stacks had been distracted by my rebels, so I began assaulting low level forts, but did not move more than a province away from a resting point.

Part 1 of the plan worked well.

That was one stack. Here's the other:

They are marching towards Switzerland, but just North of that they walked straight into a trap.

There were several huge battles.

I kept the main fighting near my borders, or near occupied French provinces. This plan worked well.

October, 1652. Eight months after Germany declared war on France, they are doomed. Brabant, Aragon, The Knights etc. have all joined in on the fun. France is involved in several wars at once, but she has no troops left. Germany's main problem is French rebels.

Peace:

I eliminated French Austria and connected Germany to Italy. I pushed a German finger into the hear of French territory. I forced France to release a couple of soon to be victims. More importantly, I left France being ripped apart by other enemies.


That was much easier than I had hoped.


In May, 1654 I got a new ruler.

This got me thinking: Why didn't I get to chose? Why has it been so long sunk a ruler change?

Turns out Republican dictators rule for life and aren't elected. It seems like they used to be, but maybe I'm wrong.

Another strange thing is that I can swap governments directly to Absolute Monarchy. That doesn't seem right either. I wasn't sure whether the boost from legitimacy would be worth it so I performed an experiment: I changed to AM. No change in BB limit or burn. I saved the game and raised my legitimacy from 50 to 100. That raised the limit by 2.

So, for an extra 2 BB limit I risk regencies, and have to manage legitimacy which will sometimes require an advisor slot. There are very few Christian nations left so marrying isn't much of an option and the potential for inheriting is not great. I will stick with my Republican Dictator. Although he will be made a general.


December 13, 1654. France after peace with Aragon:

 

[Buckmeister]

France has been defeated once. That's a start, but they will rebuild. Before I fight them again, I want to clean up my border with them.

I start with freshly released Flanders.

I added Alsace and Switzerland to the list. Switzerland is an Imperial war to take my non cores and expand my actual border with France. Flanders and Alsace were both annexed within a year. Peace with Switzerland took slightly longer.

Scandinavia was war leader. As usual I hadn't paid much attention to them. There's no point in marching through the snow when I have nothing to gain. I fought them when they invaded and sieged some of their most Eastern provinces. Olenets was occupied and when I went to make a WP I found I had the war score for something much more profitable:

The only reason Muscovy has continued to survive is that one isolated province. If I annex Finland, Muscovy becomes a high priority target.

The DoW was issued in March 1664. Eight months later:

I planned for my next war to be in the East. Muscovy and Persia, but France rebuilt more quickly than I had anticipated. They declared on OPM Switzerland. That is my core and didn't want them to take it so in April 1666:

Brittany is in there too. They were also allied with me, but they joined on the wrong side. I infiltrated the French administration again, but with a 44% success chance it took all of my spies.

France had a huge stack in Bern.

They had other big stacks too, but they were near Iberia when the war started.

Two months in I had quickly sacked 6 provinces and destroyed one French stack. One more was near death, but the other stacks were hugging the coast and marching toward the English Channel. This was their most intelligent strategy. My biggest armies were in the Southeast.


I caught some of them.

The battle of Dauphine was especially impressive. Note that France gained no WE.

Another one bites the dust.

It is rumored that I lost a large German stack around this time also, but German photographers refused to document the battle.


One battle of Berry.

A month later saw a second battle of Berry and a second lost German stack.

Once again no WE for losing an entire army.

France had two armies left until the battle of Poitou.

The last French required several battles to destroy. The Lord Protector was killed in the process, but his replacement did not have better Dip stats.

I hate to complain about high Admin rulers, but I need Dip rulers.

In February 1667, less than a year after the war began, the entire French army was destroyed.

Every province was under siege. The entire coast was blockaded. My WE was in the red, but this blitzkrieg style of fighting had accomplished a lot. If I had fought more intelligently, I would not have lost stacks and I would not have built up so much WE, but I would still be years away from victory.


With everything under control, I decided to grab my Swiss core.

Bern was stormed and Switzerland disappeared.

June 14 1667:

I should have waited a month just for the symbolic value.

France is split. I will take Savoy and Genoa. Future French wars should keep getting easier and easier.


I got another NI:

I have never taken this one before, but my success chances seem horrible in this game. Hopefully this will help.

 

[Deus Eversor]

yes yes yeeeees conquer it all

 

[Ashantai]

Excellent progress!

 

[Buckmeister]

Deus Eversor and Ashantai: Progress has been excellent. I wish I could conquer it all. If this were IN I would. As it stands, I will at least conquer all of the Old World. It's going to be a long march until the end of the game, but I'm determined to see it through. Maybe I should bust through the BB limit later just to make it interesting? Maybe not. I'm determined to keep this up all the way to the end. Perhaps war with Great Britain will be interesting.

 

[Buckmeister]

Three years of BB burn led to this:

and this:

Slightly over a year of war led to this:

and this:

This is an interesting even that I don't remember seeing before:

March of 1674 sees a little more border cleaning:

This will also allow me to reach GH Asia. The land war in Persia was uninteresting and resulted in a WP, although their fleet did surprise

Kazakh peace:

France has behaved strangely in this game. The fact that they never colonized anything even though they had QFTNW in plenty of time is just strange. They were aggressive early and blobbed well, but then they just stopped. Now that they are in serious trouble they won't stop declaring war. I don't think they have been at peace for decades. Now they declared on Great Britain!

This development forced me to declare on them. I do not want Portugal or Great Britain expanding in Europe.


Their armies are nothing like they once were.

OK. Maybe some of them don't throw up the white flag as soon as they see me coming,

but resistance is futile.

Three months after declaring war France is utterly defeated once again:

Six months later I take as many coastal provinces as I can hoping to keep Portugal from grabbing my sloppy seconds.

Notice the little yellow country at the bottom right? That was originally a OPM Sardinia Piedmont and two French provinces. My Patriots turned it all into Modena. They will be my next border cleaning mission.


The Conservatives have finally gotten upset. I like to spread the back lash around.

Taking two days off work has allowed me to play more than normal. It seems that I'm a couple updates behind the gameplay. In the interest of catching up without violating the image limit I'll add a little to this update:


I declared on Modena. Their allies joined in, including the Pope:

I should have found a way to vassalize the Pope before I gave him those provinces. Oh well. I will beat him him and bribe him back into my good graces. From now on annulling treaties with him will be a priority in minor party peace deals.


Luckily, his armies are no match for mine.

Modena's armies won't be bragging about their prowess either:

 

[Buckmeister]

I'm at war with several Italian states.

I'll add my Styrian cores to the list.

In October, 1685 I made peace with Modena.

Annexation was not possible. Disappointing.


BB burn is catching up with me so …

I'm already fighting most of those guys.

A year later:

European wars take a long time.

This one only took four months:

By a "long time" I mean 19 months.

This one took almost 2 years:

Maybe I'm confused, but I'm pretty sure there was a war with Byzantium for my core on Bor thrown in there somewhere.

New ruler with slightly better DIP stat:

Every little bit helps.

March 1690:

France is already at war with Brabant, Denmark, and Scandinavia. Most of Northern France is under siege. I will get the south under control before expanding my war.


South France fell quickly.

Brabant's army was in France. They were only guaranteed by OPM Liege. I declared, beat their army, and began sieging. Denmark and Sweden were still sieging French provinces. The easiest way to break those sieges is to declare on Denmark.

My plan here is too take over the French sieges and annex Denmark. I will also actually fight Scandinavia this time hoping to force release something.


Brabant has the two Greenland provinces and one province in Canada, but they have lost their homeland.

Aragon is war leader in the Denmark war. They were stronger than I suspected. They destroyed one stack, but once again I won due to sheer numbers.

I cancelled the "Convert Great Britain" mission because I had money to build a manufactory.

That's even better.


A Scandinavian stack sat in Nyland waiting for my armies to attack.

"Sweden" is already under siege.

Another French peace:

I made peace with them before I declared on Genoa.

I was hoping they would join. Instead the Pope jumped back into war with me.

Again, I should have vassalized the Pope when I had the chance. Again, I will beat him and bribe him back into my favor.

Despite the fact that I've been at war for a long time, I have very little WE. Scandinavia is beaten, but they are not WL so I will just let WS grow. Denmark's forts are tough and I can not bribe defenders there.


I will keep fighting.

 

[Deus Eversor]

that takes just tooooo loooong... .you will have to convert to vicky2 and then to dh to finnish the job ;/

 

[Buckmeister]

I've started and ended so many wars that it's hard to keep up with who I'm fighting and why.


I am at war with Trinacria, Naples, Luxembourg, Papal States, and Modena. I'm not sure why, but it will continue because I also want to declare on Aquiliea and some of those guys are guaranteeing her.

I'm also at war with Aragon, Scandinavia, and Denmark. That's because I want to annex Denmark and damage Scandinavia.

Scandinavia is damaged. Soon I will force them to release Norway.

I forced The Knights to release Candar.

I grabbed a colony from Aragon,

but I can't make peace with them until the last Danish province falls.


Time to take a couple more provinces.

Three months later, my mission is completed.

Austrian peace:

This will allow me to declare on them later without fighting Great Britain..

Two years after declaring:

November 1694: The last Danish fortress falls.

Besides the normal Sound Toll bonus, I also got this:

Two years after the Danish war ended I declared on France again. Thinking that I could burn 2 BB by vassalizing Candar I added two more DoW:

Stupid me didn't dissolve the alliance with Candar before going to war. Oh well.


Another new Sound event:

75 ducats is worthless to me, but the event is interesting.



September 1697:

August 1698:

November 1698:

I hope nobody else takes Constantinople before the truce runs out.

 

[Deus Eversor]

so beautiful *_*

 

[Buckmeister]

My Germany's first war of the Eighteenth Century:

And the second war:

Nothing much happening here, although The Knights' army did bounce around for a while.

I did use my subjagation CB on Candar also.


I killed off another low DIP Lord Protector:

At least this one will actually make a good general?

Two years after those wars were declared:

Genoa is integrated.

I will take my core from France before destroying her.

Lorraine might as well go away too.

Two months later the European Theater is well under control.

Rather than immediately assault, I thought I would let those sieges progress on their own while I fight elsewhere.

Persia is huge, but exhausted. Most of their armies were in Arabia and Africa. I lost a battle or two there, but assaulted low level forts in the north.

A ruler with a decent DIP stat!

Before I peaced out Persia, I declared on one of their little buddies.

A year later I forgot to take a picture of the peace deal, but here is the result.

An un-Reformed Burgundy is easier to fight.

I got what I wanted from France and Lorraine.

 

[Buckmeister]

I declared on Trinacria for a few reasons. First, I wanted to clear them out of Southern Italy. Second, they have some colonies in NA that I can seize easily. Third, Venice is guaranteed by the Pope and I want to declare on them. Pope can't join if he's allied with me in a war.

The war was no problem,

but I made a mistake here:

Papal States led the siege of Calabria so I took 4 BB for it. Oh well, I will give them the other two provinces also.

In 1715 it was time to clean up Western Europe a little bit.Hainut was first, followed by Luxembourg.

Notice the two English provinces in revolt? I did that. I figured they would be easy to take if they revolted away. I've had them in an almost constant state of rebellion for years.

Then I declared on France.

Hainut went away.

I got a good mission.

I annexed Candar.

And the British provinces revolted away.

The problem is the Patriots are friendly to me! I can't fight them and I can't siege Calais. Drat!!! That means I can't annex France. I will end up taking the Ile de France.


Luxembourg makes peace.

And I get another idea.

This will definitely help in my next war:

Persia is once again in disarray. There was a prolonged battle in what should be Yemen, but I just assaulted fortresses elsewhere. I declared on Ak Koyunla.

They were quickly annexed. The fighting in Deccan convinced me I need more troops there, but it was no big deal.

I have never seen this event:

Soon enough it was mission completion time.

And destruction of France time.

Neither one of these wars were a problem.

I will set my sights on Great Britain now, but I have a few things to clean up first.

 

[BrunoDerKaiser]

Dayum! Awesome empire!