Decided to play the Mameluks while testing some colonist.csv thingies (<--technical word). So as usual, 3-5months into 1492 the turks DoW. As usual, the mameluks are getting their butts kicked. After running out of ideas they park their last army (about 4k) in Jordan(vassel territory) to setup a government in exile. So watching the turks rip through almost the rest of the empire, the Mameluk leader (king?) decides to call for Jihad!!!!!!! Against the turkish invaders. First the sunni were called (set reglious tolerance to the extreme left). Pro-government rebels siege the turkish fortifications and return the province to mameluk control. Next even the catholics of Lebanon and the othodox of Aleppo raise their swords in Jihad against the filthy turks! After almost 10years of war, (attack, run-hide, rebel, repeat), peace is made with no territories given up. The Mamuleks survive unscathed.
Ok, now in EU terms. Once a province is under enemy control and a rebellion happens it is a 'pro-government' rebellion, and if successful you will re-gain control of the province and all rebels just fade away. Also, if a province in under enemy control it appears that revolt risk is doubled. In the case of the mameluks when almost every sunni province was over-run I thought 'hell, why not try this.' So moved the slider to the left and let the regilous rebellions begin. The rebels returned almost all the povinces to me while also killing many of the turks and stopping reinforcments from running from aleppo, syria, judea, etc… down to egypt. This gave my leader a chance to regroup and kill the turking army west of the nile and begin to push east and finally north. The war went on and on like this with mameluk forces hiding in the jordan/arabian/mekah area when big turkish armies moved south through judea and on past egypt. Jordan was also a good place to ambush the little armies (5k'ish) that were being sent to reinforce the main army. In the end the turk got tired of fighting and after 10-15years settled for 'status quo' peace.
Over the next few years the mameluks gave a lot of cash to their vassels (forget the name, but they control jordan down to the Mekah) as thanks, and to improve relations. For some reason, after about 3 years of peace the war-like nubians(they got big teeth, ah-la monty python) DoWed the mameluks and this brought in the turks and persia. With this, all mameluk troops went south of the nile and took 2 provinces and the capital to get a quick peace (almost the whole mameluk empire was overrun in this short time, but returned as the nubians were temp. alliance leaders).
What follows is an almost 45years of war. The mameluks stand alone vs the Turks, Nubia, Aden and Hafsid.
While the mameluks focus and overrun the last 3 provinces of the nubians. The turks overrun the mameluk lands. More Jihad happens and the turks are pushed back north of Judea. The remaining mameluks zip over and attack the Hafsid who have pushed all the way into Alexandria. The Hafsid are defeated and the mameluks methodically push on and take control of the two hafsid provinces. Maybe 10more years of attack, run-hide, rebel, repeat fighting happens and finally we have a large army in aleppo and very few turks in sight. All provinces are ours, so it is time to mil-annex the nubians and Hafsid then get peace from the turks. We mil-annex ok, but the turks get really mad for some reason (they were both former allies), and attack us again while ignoring our peace offers. Well keep repeating the matra (attack, run-hide, rebel, rebel, rebel, repeat at needed) for almost 30 more years. During one rebellion things got out of control and a message pops up….. (April 1, 1548)
"GOVERNMENT FALLS! My Lord, the rebels in MAMELUKS have broken our government"
followed by….
"Our Governor reports NEW NATION. My lord the free people in HAFSID EMPIRE have declared indepency from their former oppressors in MAMELUKS……"
Well this ends the war, with Turkey left controlling/owning about 9 of my provinces. After all this the Mameluks have -154 victory points.
I have to say this was THE MOST fun I have had playing EU since my first game. This was not a war of conquest and expansion. This was pure survival of the empire using every trick you can possibly think of to survive. It was a total blast. Early on I made the decision to ally with no one, to never give a peace with the turks yielding any provinces, and no offensive wars until my vassel was diplo-annexed. I highly recommend all jaded EU players to play this (use very hard/normal settings). You will definitely become good at defensive war, counter attacks and how to insite pro-government rebels with religious tolerance sliders. It is almost pure manuver warfare as you are almost always running to attack or running away to save your army. Hiding an army in Jordan to ambush turkish reinforcements run through judia/samaria is fun too.
The key concept here, is how to use 'pro-government' rebels to buy you time to regroup and counterattack, disrupt supply lines and generally cause mayhem to invading armies. I am sure there must be other countries who can use this same concept in times of crisis.
Here are a couple screen shots…all the same war….
Sorry could not display images or even link to them and have them work thanks to geocities.
http://www.geocities.com/errantone/RebelScum.htm
To bad there are no events to adjust regious tolerance for AI players if the human is over running them.
ErrantOne
Ok, now in EU terms. Once a province is under enemy control and a rebellion happens it is a 'pro-government' rebellion, and if successful you will re-gain control of the province and all rebels just fade away. Also, if a province in under enemy control it appears that revolt risk is doubled. In the case of the mameluks when almost every sunni province was over-run I thought 'hell, why not try this.' So moved the slider to the left and let the regilous rebellions begin. The rebels returned almost all the povinces to me while also killing many of the turks and stopping reinforcments from running from aleppo, syria, judea, etc… down to egypt. This gave my leader a chance to regroup and kill the turking army west of the nile and begin to push east and finally north. The war went on and on like this with mameluk forces hiding in the jordan/arabian/mekah area when big turkish armies moved south through judea and on past egypt. Jordan was also a good place to ambush the little armies (5k'ish) that were being sent to reinforce the main army. In the end the turk got tired of fighting and after 10-15years settled for 'status quo' peace.
Over the next few years the mameluks gave a lot of cash to their vassels (forget the name, but they control jordan down to the Mekah) as thanks, and to improve relations. For some reason, after about 3 years of peace the war-like nubians(they got big teeth, ah-la monty python) DoWed the mameluks and this brought in the turks and persia. With this, all mameluk troops went south of the nile and took 2 provinces and the capital to get a quick peace (almost the whole mameluk empire was overrun in this short time, but returned as the nubians were temp. alliance leaders).
What follows is an almost 45years of war. The mameluks stand alone vs the Turks, Nubia, Aden and Hafsid.
While the mameluks focus and overrun the last 3 provinces of the nubians. The turks overrun the mameluk lands. More Jihad happens and the turks are pushed back north of Judea. The remaining mameluks zip over and attack the Hafsid who have pushed all the way into Alexandria. The Hafsid are defeated and the mameluks methodically push on and take control of the two hafsid provinces. Maybe 10more years of attack, run-hide, rebel, repeat fighting happens and finally we have a large army in aleppo and very few turks in sight. All provinces are ours, so it is time to mil-annex the nubians and Hafsid then get peace from the turks. We mil-annex ok, but the turks get really mad for some reason (they were both former allies), and attack us again while ignoring our peace offers. Well keep repeating the matra (attack, run-hide, rebel, rebel, rebel, repeat at needed) for almost 30 more years. During one rebellion things got out of control and a message pops up….. (April 1, 1548)
"GOVERNMENT FALLS! My Lord, the rebels in MAMELUKS have broken our government"
followed by….
"Our Governor reports NEW NATION. My lord the free people in HAFSID EMPIRE have declared indepency from their former oppressors in MAMELUKS……"
Well this ends the war, with Turkey left controlling/owning about 9 of my provinces. After all this the Mameluks have -154 victory points.
I have to say this was THE MOST fun I have had playing EU since my first game. This was not a war of conquest and expansion. This was pure survival of the empire using every trick you can possibly think of to survive. It was a total blast. Early on I made the decision to ally with no one, to never give a peace with the turks yielding any provinces, and no offensive wars until my vassel was diplo-annexed. I highly recommend all jaded EU players to play this (use very hard/normal settings). You will definitely become good at defensive war, counter attacks and how to insite pro-government rebels with religious tolerance sliders. It is almost pure manuver warfare as you are almost always running to attack or running away to save your army. Hiding an army in Jordan to ambush turkish reinforcements run through judia/samaria is fun too.
The key concept here, is how to use 'pro-government' rebels to buy you time to regroup and counterattack, disrupt supply lines and generally cause mayhem to invading armies. I am sure there must be other countries who can use this same concept in times of crisis.
Here are a couple screen shots…all the same war….
Sorry could not display images or even link to them and have them work thanks to geocities.
http://www.geocities.com/errantone/RebelScum.htm
To bad there are no events to adjust regious tolerance for AI players if the human is over running them.
ErrantOne
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