Ottomans Unleashed
I haven't done an AAr in ages but I felt I might try to give it a shot with For the Glory coming out as it made me feel nostalgic about my ancient Eu2 AAr experiences. Anyways here are the settings:
-No mods will be used, just the plain Grand Campaign scenario of For the Glory
-Difficulty: Very Hard and Furious (so I will have to keep an eye on my BB)
-Country of choice: Ottoman Empire
-Aims: Well... let's get my rusty skills up to date and try to push myself to the maximum, I'll go where the game takes me. Mind you, I'm not going to go on mindless 'annexfest' in the first years as I'll want to avoid BB wars for the beginning.
About the AAr type, I guess it will be a mix of descriptive and game play types spiced with some pictures. So let's roll.
Chapter 1
As we all know in 1419 the Ottoman Empire starts of with a good share of the Balkans and a decent size of Anatolia. I have got cores up to Hungary in the West, to the Southernmost bits of Poland and to George in the North, to the Caspian sea on the East, and all over the way to Egypt, and Egypt itself of course. This will make the initial expansions easy, or at least easier, but for the first century I will have to and I will want to watch my BB limit. After that, who knows? Anatolia is full of Turkish minors and that offers me good opportunities. Also, having played Eu2 for years and being interested in history makes you familiar with a lot of events in the game (unless the triggers have been changed around in FtG) therefore I know that there are some juicy consequences if I annex Constantinople so I decide the sooner I do it the better it is. However, there is one slight problem with that, they have more, so I will wait for the right moment to grab the old city.
Before going to war I use my DP click on a move towards Offensive Doctrine so that I can get a nice morale and eventually a shock bonus. I set my research fully towards infrastructure, let's get those tax collectors as fast as I can. For the time being I only need to do these domestic wise so I shall utilize my 60k standing army. Well I would utilize them but I only got one diplomat thus I figured the best would be to disband all those silly pieces of artillery and a good share of the starting infantry so I can stay under my support limit. Now I position the rest of my troops against my two province Southern neighbour, Karaman, and I declare war. They have no armies yet so I just overwhelm them and start besieging their provinces. As soon as I get my next diplomat I declare war on Teke, too. Teke is a one province minor with a small standing army. They are perfectly ideal to a quick war. After Karaman surrenders in February of 1420 (they gave up all their money and became a vassal of mine) I attack Teke with my armies. They won their first battle but their army got annihilated in the second clash. The siege takes long but peace is concluded in late 1421 (same terms as with Karaman: treasury and vassalship). During the war I accept the alliance offer of Ak Koyunlu with hopes that I can go on a diplo-vassalize spree on them but as it will turn out I'll regret my decision soon.
In 1422 my allies decide to attack my vassal Karaman and they call me to arms. I refuse their invitation and lose one stab point. Mind you, its better than loosing five or six times more with declaring war on my vassal with whom I have a truce. So the whole alliance thing was good for me getting ripped of a stability point. Whatever, as I look around I notice that Byzantine has been reduced to just its capital so I mobilize my whole army for action. On August 1st, 1422, I declare war on the infidels with my whole army in Macedonia and my navy blocking Thrace. Swift victory follows, I can annex them a year later. In the following year three events fires. (Fate of the Patriarchate, The city of Men's Desire, The economic reforms of Mehmed II's) I'll let the Patriarchate to exist but I appoint a new Patriarch, break the now useless agreements with Venice and Genoa and finally I move my capital to Thrace.
In the following years I promoted tax collectors everywhere and cemented my position. My first vassal, Karman, lost a province to Dulkadir but as a twist of fate Dulkadir's old capital has declared independence so Dulkadir moved to my neighbourhood. Also, the rebels were Orthodox so I basically had a free chance to dow them. However, before I could move the infidels annexed a small minor nearby and that gave me an idea. An alliance was a made with my other vassal, Teke and I dowed both sides of the Dulkadir conflict (note: Karaman was already at war with them). My armies were to take out the non-vassal armies and then ideally my vassals, whether they are in my alliance or not, would exploit the situation and grab provinces freeing my from unnecessary badboy hits. The plan worked, Teke took a province off from Aleppo and Karaman annexed Dulkadir. This was all done by the last months of 1437 and the next two years have been spent with boosting up the relations with Teke, preparing them for a diplo-annexation. I manage to annex them for the first try thus expanding my wee empire with two provinces and additional troops.
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