Morocco AAR: Conquest of Europe

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Morocco AAR: Conquest of Europe

Hi all. I'm playing Divine Wind. I'm using 5.0 because it's faster than the patches on my netbook CPU. This is my first AAR and second time playing Morocco.

Mods: no fog gfx fix, no pirates, and rebels are non-reinforcing and non-resilient.

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Chapter 1: The opening gambit

We start the game in 1399. The Sultan is Abu Said of the Marinid dynasty, and we have a 1 year-old heir.

Our objectives in this game are to conquer Europe and convert it Muslim. I feel there will be plenty of challenges in form of Castille, France, England`s navy, the Pope, and whoever gets the upper hand in the HRE. If it forms then it should be a real challenge. So that would be Austria or Bohemia most likely, and Burgundy could also prove to be a stumbling block. That should leave Poland and Russia for the end. It wouldnt surprise me if they should grow strong as space opens up for them since we`ll attempt to attack Europe from the southwest.

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Day 1: We cancel our alliance with Granada. Our navy cant match Castille so no war with Castille right away. First we`ll grow strong and then invade Iberia.

We move the trade slider to the right which takes us to +4 Free Trade. This should help us get rich, as well as let us pull along in tech since we`re in the Muslim group, at least until we get big enuf and too infamous for trade to matter, and everyone in the Western tech group is annexed. The Muslim group gives us the advantage of being 20 years ahead of tech at game start. So we change our NI to Military Drill which should prove to be the decisive advantage against Castille. This takes us down to -2 stab. We will invest everything into stab to regain it asap. I usually abhor investing into stab, but in this situation we can afford to do that.

We start creating armies to take us from the starting 3 regiments to our land force limit of 12. We hire a +3% Trade Efficiency advisor. We send an alliance offer to Algiers which they accept.

Castille DOWs Granada but we have to wait a month to put our masterplan into action, since we cant send another Diplomat to Granada for a month. In the meantime we place our 3 starting armies onto cogs and send them to the Straits of Gibraltar. During this time, Algiers and Portugal join the Castille-Granada War.

As our navy gets into position, we declare on Granada without a CB and take a 3 infamy and 2 stab hit, which takes us to -3 stab. As we are not getting many merchants in this situation, it will take us a couple of years to start dominating trade. We also can`t afford much BB, so other than some initial infamy we have planned, our long term strat is Holy War CB on all of Europe at 1 BB per province. My main reason for playing this scenario is to have a fun conquering game that wont make you go over BB, to avoid stab hit and inflation events if you`re over the limit.

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Algiers and Tunisia join the war on the Granadan side, but neither of them can interfere with our plans. Our Navy is stronger than their individual ones, but just for good measure the Granadan Navy gets destroyed by Castille. We send our armies to the 3 Granadan provinces with great care, and in the shuffle of Castille chasing the miniature Granadan ``stacks`` through the central Granadan province, we manage to get into position of siege leader in all 3 provinces.

Chapter 2 to follow in a little bit! I`ve played the opening 13 years so far and I`ll post it all today.

 

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Chapter 2: The Protracted War

As our War on Granada started, Algiers started sieging our eastern provinces. After we managed to create a decent sized army, we put them on our cogs and dropped them behind enemy lines. We reconquered our southeasternmost province from the Algerians and proceeded to attack their sieges of the rest of our provinces. At this point the war between us and Algeria stabilized, as we had no desire to get anything from them in this war. We don`t want their provinces for the inconvenience of BB. Instead, our long-term strategy is to vassalize them, to provide a strong ally in our future grand plans. We cannot do this at the moment however because to vassalize them we need a war score of 110, so they will have to lose some provinces before this can happen. We did consider taking a province from them, which would give us 4 BB, but after we quickly blitzed Tunisia and conquered their 2 fortless provinces, and promptly vassalized Tunisia with a 63 score, we offered to Concede Defeat to Algeria. Remember, they are still at war with Castille and Portugal, so we don`t want to weaken them. In fact, I was side-stepping their stack the whole time so that they can still put up a fight against the Iberians. After our peace, we offered an alliance to Algiers which they accepted, even at low 25 relations after our freshly-ended war.

On October 14, 1400 we hired a 2-star infamy Diplomat and a 1-star Mint Master. Disappointing to say the least.
In the meantime we also entered Royal Marriages with the Ottomans, the Jalayarids and Tripoli. We don`t want any trouble with Tripoli, nor do we want Mamelukes causing trouble on that front. Where they are is just perfect and lets hope they stay as they are. Ottomans is the real long-term ally we want. Jalayarids are....there. Mamelukes appear to have an initial distaste for us.

Then, on August 14, 1401 something terrible happened.

No one in the realm could have predicted the terrible events that would unfold from this sad day, least of all me.

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Castille and Portugal made a white peace with Granada and Algiers. The only war left between Iberia and Africa was now my Granadan invasion.

Now I will tell you about our plan to invade Iberia. Points to consider:

Castille, Aragon and Portugal`s navies are each stronger than mine, and even if I make mine bigger than any of theirs, I still face the possibility of getting my Navy wiped out. There is of course the always marauding English Navy, which could join any war through the causation chain. So a naval approach was never on the cards. What we need instead is a staging ground on the Iberian peninsula, where we can move our armies just before a war, so that the armies can have home turf to reinforce on, and ready to strike a coordinated strike against the Iberians before they know what hit them.

So, Granada is the perfect staging ground for the invasion of Iberia. Also, it only borders Castille, so Castille is first on the chopping block. By breaking alliance with Granada and invading their land, we have in fact saved them from the Castillians. The real problem now of course is what to do after we annex their land. I would have been happy with only 2 of their provinces, which would give me enough maneuvering space in Iberia, but the fact that Castille messed up the siege of Almeria was a real boon to our cause.

So, once we annex Granada, Castille will get a Holy War CB on us. A DOW would surely follow in no time, so we need to make a strategy here that will hold up against Castille and any of the allies it might bring into the upcoming war. BTW, a defensive war in Africa was never on the cards. We need to attack them away before they attack us at home.

There are many issues we need to iron out before we make war on Castille:

1. We need time to create a trading empire.
2. We need time to burn off 6 BB that we currently have, 3 from the Granada DOW and 4 from vassalizing Tunisia. We`ve already burned 1 off.
3. We need to be flush with cash and have the armies and navy created that will take down Castille, all circa 20 regiments that will be our new land force limit after we annex Granada, and at the same time still have a full manpower pool.

Solution: we protract the war against Granada. Every time our siege of the last Granadan province gets going, we restart it. This way Castille doesn`t have a CB on us, and they can`t successfully attack Granada.

Our plan is to wait for Castille to get into a war, possibly against Aragon by some causality chain of Italian minors since Aragon likes to get involved in those. We can then finish our siege of Granada and attack Castille, once Castille has some WE. Our armies will already be waiting in our ``conquered`` Granadan provinces to pounce on Castille. When we see Castille in trouble, we will also start recruiting new regiments. Best option is to to recruit 7 regiments in one province in the queue. We will pay less this way in maintenance, and we will have enough time for our manpower pull to completely replenish.

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We are starting to trade.

We have joined the Hanseatic trade league. This will turn out to give us an increase of circa 10% in our Compete Chance.

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It is now Sunday, December 20 1404. We have been at war with Granada now for 5 years. We are at +3 stab, we`re starting to trade, when disaster strikes.

Our King, who was without an heir, has died. And then we see this:

This complicates our situation immensely. Our eye is solely on Castille, and now we`re a junior in a PU with Tripoli...

We proceed to send them insults until our relations are well below 0. The main problem now is that I can`t DOW Castille when I want, but will instead most likely be declared upon.

The one saving grace from this whole situation is that our new ruler has a 7 rating for both administration and diplomacy.

In 1406, we have new advisors in addition to our new Tripolitanian overlord:

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The 5-year truce between us and Algiers in the Granadan War has expired, so Algiers joins the same War they already peaced out of, and this time they become the leader. This will force our hand to actually end our Granadan War. Additionally, the Castille-Granada truce has also expired, so Castille has DOW`d them again, so now Algiers is fighting against me and Castille and Portugal.

It is 1407 now. The Gods have gifted us a COT in Ifni (thankfully it`s not in Sus) and we have a bit of a trading empire:

Algiers is fighting a tough 3-way war. I`m trying not to kill their stack so they can put up a fight against Castille and Portugal, but I also don`t want to white peace with them because it would mean the end of my Granadan War, and I`m not ready for that war to end yet.

It is now 1408. We will start the final phase of our Granadan War. We will occupy Algiers along with Castille and Portugal and start minting from our huge trade income. We`re minting over 40 ducats a month, and we wont stop until our inflation goes from 0 to 4% and we have over 2000 gold in the bank, and a bigger navy than Castille or Portugal or Aragon (individually mind you.) If they ganged up on me or the English Navy did a stroll through the Straits of Gibraltar we would still have problems, but at least we`ll be in a position not to allow the Iberians to land troops in Africa. This is of paramount importance for this reason:

if an enemy occupies our African provinces, we take normal War Exhaustion for it. If they occupy our European provinces, there is no WE. Our European holdings are treated as distant overseas provinces, that is, colonies, and we don`t take tax on them but tariffs.

We might want to move our capital to Europe once we get a core there, so as soon as I annexed Granada, I moved the National Focus there in hope that we might get a core on a Castillian province by event. This would allow us to move our capital to Europe should we choose to do so before the 50 years it takes a province to core.

Alternatively, we could keep our capital in Africa and still have no penalties for provinces in Europe that are connected to it by land, but that would mean going through Constantinople. And that`s not really an option, because we have to go the western route so that we dont fall prey to an invasion of Africa from the northwest.

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So after Castille annexed 2 westernmost Algerian provinces, I moved my 20 regiments into Granada, annexed Granada and vassalized Algiers for a 73 score.

We had burned off the initial 7 BB, and we now have 16 BB to burn. All future provinces that we take will be in Europe, and they will come at 1 BB a peice.

With the annexation of Granada on 22 August 1410, we ended The Protracted War. We are now ready for Castille. We have the 2nd highest income in the world after Ming, more carracks than Castille, and over 2000 ducats in the bank. We are 4.0 inflation but we are working it down, and we`re still making a nice sized profit. And we`re making good progress in tech. And even with the BB, we`re not losing any merchants.

We`re still under the Tripolitanian PU though.

Chapter 3 to follow: The First War vs Castille

 

[unmerged(173517)]

does anyone like the aar?

 

[Gukpa]

I like it

 

[unmerged(173517)]

Chapter 3: The first war vs Castille

We make a slider move to +5 Free Trade.

And then, just a few short months afterwards, in January 1411, Castille declares war on us.

We were well prepared for this, so as soon as the DOW came we blitzed one of their 2 stacks with my 2 stacks, and then proceeded to get rid of their other stack in the same manner. With our Military Drill NI, Castille never stood a chance.

Now, I have to admit I did not go into this war with a good attitude, because our senior partner Tripoli is the alliance leader. So, as I did not expect to get anything out of this war, I just retreated to my Granadan provinces and watched as Castille with its manpower intact built another stack. I proceeded to destroy this stack, but that totally wiped my manpower. Infact, I was now left with maybe 12,000 soldiers in my 20 regiments, with 0 manpower left. Doing some quick math, I calculated that this would take a long time to fix.

This was a big lesson: never go into a war half-assed, even if you're not going to get anything out of it. So I proceeded to siege Castillian provinces before they could build another stack and totally mess up my armies.

Then something wonderful happened. The Tripolitanian Sultan died, and we got a new Sultan of our own.

Suleyman I of Sa'ud.

In this situation, we could negotiate with Castille. So we quickly assaulted 2 of their provinces, and peaced out with Castille for a 25% score, taking Cordoba and La Mancha, before Tripoli as alliance leader makes peace. Shortly afterwards, Tripoli made peace as well, where they forced Castille to release Galicia.

We could have taken Murcia, but we didn't want a border with Aragon yet. We will need a 5 year truce with Castille for our manpower to recover.

 

[Magnive]

Couldn't you just have "rebelled" against Tripoli while being under their PU, like many Brandenburg/Holland players do?

 

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Chapter 4: Jihading in Iberia from 1417 to 1453

In 1417, Joseph I of Austria has been elected the new Holy Roman Emperor. The same year we managed to colonize Rio de Oro. We hired a Theologian and established the Sheikh ul-Islam office for extra missionaries. We didn't want any of the other religious decisions because they have too much of a down side, like extra revolts and more expensive stab.

In 1419, our truce with Castille expires. Even though our manpower pool is empty, we still decide to declare on Castille before they declare on us.

Burgundy dishonors.

We wipe out the Castillian 12k stack, and then we wipe out the Portuguese only stack. Venice managed to sneak in a 15k stack into Africa before we won a minor naval battle against Venice. Things were looking good. We only needed to destroy the main Castillian 15k stack. We attacked with our 25k stack, led by our Sultan.

We won the Battle of Toledo, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. With the huge losses we took, and no manpower left, I got worried. It meant that there was no chance now to destroy the main Castillian stack, and with Venice wreaking havoc in Africa, we needed a new strategy.

So while Castille decided to siege Almeria with their big stack, we decided to move our army north and siege the northern Castillian provinces because they are out of range of the Castillian main stack. We kept a small cavalry stack that went around wiping out Castillian and Portuguese regiments.

We had to get Venice out of this war, because they managed to occupy a couple of my African provinces, and Algeria and Tunisia werent handling them well, even though I was sending war subsidies to my vassals. So we offered 200 ducats to Venice to get out of the war and they accepted.

We also conceded defeat to Portugal, and they accepted. It would do no good to get any of their provinces because they would come at 4BB each. We also conceded defeat to Lithuania.

We managed to win enough sieges and still sidestep the main Castillian stack for a 100% war score.

In the East, the Ottomans managed to conquer Syria from the Mamelukes. It seems they have the mission to bring down the Mamelukes. Our relations with the Ottomans are at 200 and we have a Royal Marriage. If we were to ask for an alliance, they would be Very Likely to accept. So, the Ottomans are our ace up the sleeve. If things ever go wrong, we'll ally them and call them into our war. Of course, we might never need them, and we'll have to bring them down instead.

Happy day! We got a new Heir. His ratings are adm 8, dipl 6, mil 7. He will never see the battlefield.

And then 6 months later....

This means we wont be able to declare war for the next 15 years. Just enough time to burn off our BB I guess...

I fear Castille and Portugal will feel too weak to declare on us, and we dont have a border with Aragon, who have lost Roussillon to France.

So, with nothing to do, we could guarantee European minors and get into wars that way, but it would be too much BB. So instead, we'll guarantee Muslim minors in Persia and Hindustan, and get our war taxes that way.

In 1426, We managed to convert the first European province to Islam.

In 1431, We have become the richest nation in the world.

In 1432, a great man helps out.

In 1435, we got a Colonial Conquest vs Mutapa. We just might go there to raid their piggy bank and take their gold mines. We also managed to colonize Arguin on the West African coast.

We got a nice gift from Rajputana. The moral support we offered our allies in Hindustan seems to have paid off. Jalayrids have offered us an alliance, but we have refused.

In 1439, our Sultan is of age. On the same day, we declare on Castille.

Castille has only 1 stack.

We also manage to wipe out Burgundy's navy.

We peace out with Castille, taking 5 provinces.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Holy Roman Emperor has been warring for a long time, against France, Burgundy and Bohemia, and others, and has been forced to release parts of his demesne.

Just as we were preparing to close one war and start a Jihad on Aragon, we see this.

We dont want French troops defending Aragon, so this means no war for a while, as we are under truce with Portugal and Galicia from the Castillian war.

Elsewhere, England has annexed Scotland. In 1444, England claims the title Defender of the Faith. We DOW Aragon. Only England and Tyrone join the war.

We also DOW Mutapa. It took our 10k stack well over a year to get there.

England called for a Crusade on my vassal Algeria, thus taking the Crusade off of me. Amusing.

We defeated the main Aragonese stack, all 5k of it. Holland joins the war on the Aragonese side.

We wipe out the Dutch navy. During the happy moment, I forgot to dock my navy. Turns out the English navy went for a stroll through the Gates of Gibraltar, and...

We managed to defeat them! For some reason they didnt send all their carracks, and we even managed to capture a carrack of theirs. I just love naval wins.

We have taken 2 gold mines from Mutapa. We can now also send merchants to one of the 2 Indian COTs, and we're only missing range slightly for the other one. We are considering taking a province west of Hindustan to get trade range for the Chinese COT.

We declare on Castille as we're wrapping up the Aragonese war.

After we peace out with Aragon and Castille, this is the new map of Europe.

In the 32nd year of his reign as Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph I of Austria dies, and Jan II of Bohemia becomes the new Emperor. Hopefully the Empire can start passing some reforms in the Imperial Diet.

 

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We declare on Swahili because they had gotten some of Mutapa's gold earlier, and proceed to peace out for 350 ducats.

We got a new mission to incorporate Algiers into our demesne, that gives us a core on one of Algiers' provinces. Earlier, Castille's provinces in Africa had defected to Algiers.

Our next mission is to incorporate Tunisia into our demesne, which would give us a core on a Tunisian province.

Mamlukes seem to be history.

We have the 2nd largest army in the world. With Algiers out of the picture, Hungary got control of the Curia and called for a Crusade against the Ottomans. The Ottomans had earlier taken eastern Hungarian provinces.

In 1453, Venice has claimed the title Defender of the Faith. The same year, we conquered northern Portugal.

Inn 1454, we finished our 2nd Jihad against Aragon. We took Ragusa and Zeta from them to get a border with Hungary. We have also taken Girona, which gives us a border with France. We hope to make a beeline for Rome, and we have 2 approaches to take.

I don't know what to do with my 2 Mutapan provinces. They are tying up my 10k stack there. I might call those troops home, and ally Swahili there so they can kill any rebellions or defend from a Mutapan attack. Or should I start expanding from Mutapa, through Swahili, all the way north to the Gulf of Aden? I have to keep them, because when they core they'll be key ports for Indian Ocean.

What do you all think? And what about changing my capital to Granada? I will be able to do that very soon. But is it worth it?

 

[Gukpa]

You will conquer all europe?!From Lisbon to Urals?

 

[unmerged(173517)]

Couldn't you just have "rebelled" against Tripoli while being under their PU, like many Brandenburg/Holland players do?

I did see the option that I could declare on them, but it said it would take me down 5 stab. It did say the 5 stab was for breaking a truce, which could be referring to the situation we were in when we had gotten into the union, and then soon afterwards Tripoli had joined my Granadan war as a Granadan ally. So we were de facto in war, and our union still didnt break.

Anyways, good point, I hadnt really considered the option fully.

You will conquer all europe?!From Lisbon to Urals?

Hopefully

 

[yequr]

Since you've been colonizing Mauritania... do you plan to to eat Mali any time soon? That would tie up quite some resources that could be needed badly against France at first, but make letting the capital stay in Africa definitely worth it for now. Other than that... Can you even move to Granada with Marrakech not being isolated, does proximity cancel the "can only move capital to other continent when isolated"-thing like it cancels the distant overseas penalty? For 2000 gold and 10 stab, staying in Africa is still looking like the lesser evil for now...

Also, wonder what would have happened if you vassalized Tripoli in that war. Is it even possible?

 

[unmerged(145182)]

Nice AAR. How far are you from westernizing? Take as much advandtage of your land tech advance early on as you can. After 1500 your army will be crushed by any european and France is getting closer and closer.

 

[Lagren]

GJ I was playing Morocco with great successes, and I've never left Granada alone(until decades later they betrayed me, which made me kinda sad, as I supported them for all time) It was challenging but doable, and by the end of the first war I had great foothold in Spain, and weakened Castille.

BTW, why not colonising Americas? :>

 

[MarkusH]

I will be following this.

 

[unmerged(173517)]

Lagren, QFTNW as 2nd idea? Hmm maybe, but I just dont think I wanna colonize. It's too expensive, and by the time it'd be pay off, there'd be no need for it. Instead, we'll wipe out all possible colonizers. If we take the idea, it'll be to raid the American piggy bank, maybe even make it a regular trip to the bank, from Shawnee to Inca

Zozo, I wont be westernizing. I'd need to be 20 tech levels behind, and I'm investing everything into land tech. But, I will take your 2nd suggestion to heart and declare on France. I'll recall my Mutapan army and make a plan. I could do with a long war, as we have plenty of BB to burn off. I dont want the Ottos taking Hungary though because in a war with the Ottos I cant use Holy War CB. So I'll have to take some land in Europe that would block their expansion and would force the Ottos to fight in Asia and Arabia. Hopefully, I'd like too see their land taken over by Christians.

Markus, thanks.

Yequr, Im not sure about the Tripoli thing. I'm colonizing the African coast so no one else can. I'm still one colony from discovering the West African natives, and I will most likely just take their coastal provinces to keep others away.

My finances are not that good. Im taking inflation to be able to build armories and the rest of the buildings, and France still has double my manpower. Good thing in declaring on France though is that they dont have allies really, and only 3 vassals left.

 

[aniuby]

Hmm, I'm watching too. The last Moroccan AAR I read was Char1es' Lone and Level Sands, which I really liked, although he didn't tangle with Europeans at all until the age of colonisation rolled around, and then he lost his save.

Like many others, I'm similarly wondering how the heck you're managing to get the funds for all those ships and soldiers. Morocco has decent sliders for a Muslim country, and starts with the Lvl 1 buildings and a few carracks, but that's about it - I don't imagine trade gets you all that much with all that infamy, and likely only Alexandria and Andalusia (which is non-core, thus bogging your compete chance down further). Carracks, especially, are bloody expensive. What is your yearly income? Also, I'm surprised England or France haven't claimed DotF and come in to save their co-religionists from your Moorish grasp.

Second idea ... how about Press Gangs, to help fight England's navy (if it still exists)? Or Grand Army or National Conscripts, to help build the giant army to fight France? Or if you're already sitting pretty by that time, take National Bank to work off the inflation. Or just take Divine Supremacy to help convert all those provinces. I wouldn't bother with QFTNW - just kill the colonisers quick, since you already have Iberia down and England and France tend to be a little slower out of the gate.

 

[unmerged(173517)]

Hmm, I'm watching too. The last Moroccan AAR I read was Char1es' Lone and Level Sands, which I really liked, although he didn't tangle with Europeans at all until the age of colonisation rolled around, and then he lost his save.

Like many others, I'm similarly wondering how the heck you're managing to get the funds for all those ships and soldiers. Morocco has decent sliders for a Muslim country, and starts with the Lvl 1 buildings and a few carracks, but that's about it - I don't imagine trade gets you all that much with all that infamy, and likely only Alexandria and Andalusia (which is non-core, thus bogging your compete chance down further). Carracks, especially, are bloody expensive. What is your yearly income? Also, I'm surprised England or France haven't claimed DotF and come in to save their co-religionists from your Moorish grasp.

Second idea ... how about Press Gangs, to help fight England's navy (if it still exists)? Or Grand Army or National Conscripts, to help build the giant army to fight France? Or if you're already sitting pretty by that time, take National Bank to work off the inflation. Or just take Divine Supremacy to help convert all those provinces. I wouldn't bother with QFTNW - just kill the colonisers quick, since you already have Iberia down and England and France tend to be a little slower out of the gate.

When I say I have financial problems, I mean that I have to mint to build buildings. I`m still top of the world in income. I still have 5 merchants in 9 COTs. My trade is like 45% of my income, and my gold mines are like 15% of my income.

As you can see from one of the screenies above, my trade efficiency for some reason is 41%. Other than Free Trade +5 and +4% Trade Efficiency advisor, I dont have any other special trading thing like Plutocracy slider.

My badboy doesnt seem to be impacting the trade, and my merchants havent been getting dislodged for a while now. It is true that I have the highest infamy I`ve had yet after my Aragon war, so maybe things will change. But even if they do, we`ll take a province west of India then, and we`ll be able to dominate Chinese, Japanese, the other Indian COT, and the Malacca COT, because our trade efficiency should be much higher than theirs. As for European COTs, I dont get embargoed from them, even when I war against Burgundy or Venice. I think the Hanseatic League membership gives me some trading bonus, and I dont compete against my fellow League members. I chose Hansa because I figure all the good German trading minors will be there. The Venetian League will prolly have the worst traders, and the Genoese League should have the good trading French minors. But those have all disappeared I think as time went on. Brittany, Bar, Armagnac, etc have all been annexed, and Holland got annexed by Burgundy, but I think the Emperor forced Burgundy to release them just recently. They got annexed shortly after I sunk their navy, which means they were prolly unable to defend their Venetian style province.

So anyway, if trade becomes a problem, we`ll make it a point to annex good trading minors

Honestly, I always play mercantilistic nations, and I didnt wanna take Morocco because they are a Free Trader,and I hate playing Free Trading nations because I like conquering too much. But really, the Free Trade is working out better than I could have expected. Maybe because with the Regency I had I was forced to take it slow so I was able to burn off the BB.

Anyways, I dont think I`ll be getting out of the Despotic Monarchy because of the extra infamy limit it provides.

And I do have a 6-star mint master

As for England, they are totally useless. They once dropped a big stack into Africa, and my vassal Algeria attacked them with a smaller stack and chased them around Africa until they destroyed them. I was very surprised. Maybe it was the Algerian`s revenge for calling a Crusade on them.

I fear I wont have a rival in this game after I`m done with France. Maybe Bohemia, they are the Emperor now, and I`ve counted circa 12 provinces they`ve taken by demanding it from Austria and Burgundy and other Imperial bad boys who have taken land they shouldnt have. So if they can keep their throne, maybe they can get big enough to mount a challenge, but I`m not that optimistic about any of the possible challengers. I cant see Terra Incognita in Russia, so unless Muscowy can pull off something big, things dont look good.

 

[unmerged(173517)]

Here are some pics: nations sorted by trade efficiency, our compete chances at the various COTs with the high BB, and the military situation just before the war with France. Just to mention, a year and a half has passed since the last war, and I havent had any trouble with merchants, only now and then do we have to send one to Venice.

It seems that my European colonies are giving me full force limits, but penalize manpower because they are colonies. Only that would explain the difference in manpower and force limits between France and me.

I would consider taking Press Gangs, but only later, when new types of ships come. We dont need the Grand Army, and the manpower problem will solve itself.

National bank seems like a decent idea, but I think there are better ones. The national tax one gives you actually more money, and I like the one that gives cheaper stab or maybe even one of the trading ones. But I like the idea of QFTNW cuz its free cash from natives. We can just keep a fleet of cogs and a stack that will tour America. About the time we take our gold from Inca, our truce with Aztecs and Hurons etc should expire, and so on
Also, soon we'll be able to raid West African nations for cash

If some other nation should show up at either place, they would be dealt with

 

[unmerged(173517)]

Chapter 5: First Jihad on France, and the last on Castille

We recalled our Mutapan army, and we placed 7 of our 8 stacks on the border with France, and the 8th stack on the cogs ready to join the fight. We were ready to blitz France.

Venice and Lithuania dishonoured.

We wiped out one stack before the final showdown in Armagnac. Practically the whole remaining French army was there.

After the retreat from Armagnac, French was toast.

We proceeded to siege all of France. The Emperor smelled blood and declared a War of Aggression on France.

We're 8 years ahead of schedule on land tech.

We made peace with France. The Emperor forced France to release some states.

We increased our trade range. We can now send merchants to Bihar.

And we annexed Castille.

We annexed Auvergne, and we now have 5 merchants in the top 10 COTs (the Chinese COT excepted) for the first time.

We annexed Avignon.

We annexed Navarra. We sent a stack back to Mutapa to resiege the rebelled provinces, and defend from a Mutapan attack.

 

[ATBKING]

Ive been reading since the beginning. My first comment. This is by far amazing. Im really enjoying this.