Out of the Night - CK2 TO HOI4 Megacampaign - AAR Thread

[dragoon9105]

Mupdate #16 1317-1340

The Penultimate Mupdate for Ck2 begins, We had alot of salt this session and over the week regarding the Fate of Lothlorien a region where the entirety of the session was focused on.

As Such theres not much to talk about besides the proverbial region but it is the penultimate mupdate so lets quickly go through the roster.

In Western Europe, the Nations of Iberia, Gaul and Ireland Spent the session building up for conversion, In Iberia's case this meant settling North Africa, In Ireland's case this meant trying to survive long enough outside of a regency to fix internal issues and for Gaul this meant spamming great works for some end.

In Central Europe, much the same, Raiding, Development, Construction with Nordmark seizing the city of Alexandria and ceding it to Gaul, Lithuania doing the same next to Alexandria and Scandinavia and Bohemia making preparations for the future.

In Eastern Europe we officially enter, the Thunderdome. While Carantania spent the session relatively quiet, The Hills of Lothlorien were soaked in blood.

To Start off the Session, Lothlorien with backing from Gaul, Iberia and Nordmark struck out hard for Armenia. The Response from the Eastern Bloc was to attempt to stop this and a bloody war ensued in the Crimea and in Armenia proper. In the Black Sea, Ixian Rus clashed with the Combined forces of Gaul and Iberia while in Armenia the forces of Lothlorien and Nordmark met against Persia and Israel with victory ultimately being delivered to Lothlorien.

In the Subsequent Years that followed Lothlorien was assassinated into regency, where the AI subsequently overthrew the nation and it was carved up ruthlessly by all of its neighbors.

Then becuase of various rules disputes on both sides, effectively both major land changes were reversed with some Monetary compensation being given to persia over a potential rulebreak by Nordmark in the first war.

Current Standings

​

Big Building sprees from Lithuania and Ixian Rus this session with a holding increase of nearly 50 years just nudging Nordmark out of the Top 4 in terms of realm size. In terms of Military, the game now believe Lothlorien is the most militant realm of them all.

In Terms of our Collumist rant today, i'm going to resist the temptation to go through the drama that happened on sunday and the following days and comment on the surviving nations and the situation they find themselves going into the last session of ck2, and Were gonna do it by realm size so everyone can follow along. I'll be doing the first 8 Powers here, and the remainder in the Final Mupdate, for everyones sanity, including my own.

Ixian Rus, At the Top of the Realm Size finds itself leaving Ck2 without its player but with enough development and size and score to earn its rightful place as a Great Power. Piloted by one of our best during the Crusader Kings 2 Era, it is planned to be handed off in the near future to a new player with in theory new diplomacy and a new play style. In Her time ingame Ixian Rus more or less benefited from being Russia, able to sit in the East and be a relatively unassailable Island due to her sheer size. However, she is isolated, Lithuania has made no secrets about its intent to become the New Russia, and Astrakhan also flanks Ixian Rus from Behind. Similarly the previous Russian pilot basically poisoned relations with her southern neighbor going forward in exchange for improved diplomacy with Persia, something that expectantly drew ire from western Europe as well. Russia's moves going forward need to be careful either placating Lithuania and her allies, or using force of arms and diplomacy to crush them before they rise to become a problem. Else she will likely die, alone, in the cold.

Iberia has had an interesting ride. From Sicily to the Spanish Continent to now new colonies in North Africa. Iberia is one of two remaining Hellenic Nations in the world and thus is likely to enjoy at a minimum 10% development cost from being this religion alongside her sister in faith Gaul. Though the religion is likely to receive further buffs to keep her competitive with Catholic and Norse. Spain, in how she is oriented her diplomacy and conquests appears to be looking westwards, Towards colonies and thus away from Europe. To that end her strongest friends are those likely to help protect her in Europe and not interfere with her ambitions beyond the sea. On the Other hand if Iberia plans to pivot back into Italy or France then she will likely need the opposite, a nation willing to provide naval support while she focuses on a modern and powerful Military.

Gaul Finds herself in an interesting position coming out of Crusader Kings, the Strongest Power in terms of development and development efficiency but handicapped somewhat by success. Gaul, being France has a safe and secure southern Border provided Spain does not come North, and a back to the Sea. However Gaul Lacks its natural border along the Rhine, and thus has to deal with a Combination of the two German powers if she realistically wants to expand any further. As such rumor has it the Gaul player has decided on the policy of carrying a big stick and colonizing to advance its position rather than risk coalition warfare in Europe come the age of pike and shot. To this end she however may not find herself so alone, as Spain is a natural rival at sea, Ireland exists and even Germany appears to be looking for Inroads into the Atlantic. However, Gaul has perhaps the best heartland out of any European power, host to the most farmland, good states and generally secure knowledge that she is simply too big to fail, as if Gaul were to fall, the Balance of Power would be irrevocably broken.

Lithuania is a great power on the Rise, lacking the development of her older peers but holding strong diplomacy with virtually every power in Europe. Lithuania has been a power of firm mind and purpose, to Unify the East and has for the most part made great strides in this regard, holding Western Russia up to St.Petersburg and Kiev, as well as controlling an all important flank in the White Sea. What is dangerous for Lithuania however is this single mindedness drive west puts the possibility of success within sight of many and many see a potential soviet union in their futures, a superpower. As such the expansion across the Rus should it be successful must be done at a steady pace, to keep European attitudes cool, and of course to keep the creeping corruption of expansion from overwhelming the entire nation.

Nordmark is a nation split. A Great Power and Second place in development she is handicapped by roughly one third of her potential being locked away in Rainy England. Similarly she is trapped, between expansionist Lithuania and the Rock of Gaul, effectively a caged tiger. More worrying still is Nordmark sits on vast expanses of forest, not ideal development territory, and so the proverbial clock is ticking, Unable to expand in Europe and vunlerable to naval powers Nordmark needs to perform careful diplomacy to keep itself alive, and relevant going into the future, taking opportunities when they come and making strong friendships. Like a Shark, Nordmark must keep moving at least, or it will drown.

Carantania sits dominant over both Italy and the Balkans. A Powerful location to be in, the Carpathians give her a natural shield against tumultuous Russia, The Alps protect her from interference from Western Europe and Lothlorien and the Bosporus keep her sheltered from the Middle East. As such safety is no real concern for Carantania. Like other central powers however Caratania is best served by opportunities taken and friendships made as there are several directions for expansion but the openings have not been made. Luckily if they do not, Carantania alongside Gaul has one of the best developmental cores to work with, with Farmland across both Hungary and Italy as well as complete dominance over an end node she can afford to bide her time and wait.

Lothlorien is a Great Power in Danger. With conversion looming her alliances with Western Europe look to be possibly leaving with Crusader Kings and thus she may be staring down the wrath of the East. Lothlorien however had one key advantage and that is her terrain which is covered in mountains, and a straight which she can defend with her formidable navy. As such Lothlorien should place its top concerns in the defense of Greece first and look to finding allies for explicitly this purpose as its Navy can allow it to snipe and protect Mediterranean Islands at will even if the eastern marches are lost. If the support arrives for the reclamation of her eastern territories all the better, but ultimately the Survival of the Lothlorien as a Great power will depend entirely on how it uses its Diplomacy and Navy to protect its precarious situation.

Assyria, is a Great Power and our Easternmost one at that. I've gone in depth in regards to the power of the Persia slot before but all the same I'll go through it again. Persia like Russia is isolated, but unlike Russia has one key asset, her connection to the Sea, and thus quicker access to the Rich Ports of India and Africa. With mountainous and arid terrain virtually everywhere protection comes at the cost of development, meaning one thing really. Persia must pick a direction and expand until it either hits a wall, or it hits an ocean or mountain. The Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, India, there is a path in every cardinal direction and should resistance arise in any one area, there remains the ability to simply choose another, and at worst case scenario if resistance does appear in every direction, go naval and fight with the Europeans over Indian Trade attempting to escape to Africa.


Development: (Dev/Nation/Player)
Gaul 1227
Nordmark 1170
Carantania 1137
Magna Graecia 1124
Chernobog 1113
Persia 1064
Lithuania 995
Lothlorien 984
Bohemia 972
Israel 870
Norway 640
Ireland 629
Arrakis 533
Tunisia 360
Astrakhan 334

Development took a wild ride this week as we discovered an issue with the level of Manpower conversion. Simply put Manpower was based on actual ingame levy size not buildings and so one could spam Martial rulers to increase ones development. Since this isnt ideal, we fixed it but as a result development numbers shuffled a bit.

For the most part, most nations lost development to some extent, but the general order remains intact.

King of Men's Hyper Warmongerer Score Chart:

Dragoon : 2105.18 (170.71) -55.98 2
Hagbard : 2002.42 (159.58) 3 (+1)
Fimconte : 1884.45 (180.21) +105.14 4 (-1)
James : 1818.23 (144.51) +4.31 5 (+2)
HellBent : 1730.79 (177.26) +96.56 6 (-1)
Limah : 1719.44 (235.96) 7 (-1)
Foelsgaard : 1711.12 (227.18) 8 (+3)
Mike : 1640.69 (150.46) +70.95 9
Ranger : 1633.70 (173.25) +46.01 10 (-2)
Clonefusion : 1618.75 (133.35) -8.65 11 (+2)
Sauron : 1588.63 (301.68) +88.63 12 (-2)
B5Alpha : 1585.61 (145.69) 13 (-1)
Tazzzo : 1541.74 (142.59) 14
Yami : 1374.17 (194.78) 15
Gollevainen : 1337.80 (209.81) 16
Kataphrakt : 1331.88 (270.13) 17
BlueCheeseMoon : 1316.05 (274.12) 18
Blayne : 1298.49 (131.59) 19 (+1)
Nekron : 1243.20 (236.11) 20 (-1)
King of Men : 1243.10 (134.80) -45.02 21 (+1)
GISoldier : 1230.61 (192.26) 22 (+1)
Daylam : 1226.73 (218.91) 23 (+1)
GameChanger : 1215.70 (230.14) 24 (-3)
Mark : 1199.33 (140.90) -43.44 25
Ursul : 1174.56 (196.93) 26
Hadogei : 913.69 (233.42)

Wars were reversed so kinda no change here.

Victory Points:
Paris: Blayne of Gaul
Constantinople: GisSoldier of Lothlorien
Julich: Blayne of Gaul
Rome: Tazzzo of Sicily
Jerusalem: Ranger of Israel
Mecca: Sauron of Arabia
London: Dragoon9105 of England
Prague: James of Bohemia
Sevilla: Tazzzo of Magna Graecia
Sjaelland: Dragoon9105 of Nordmark
Barcelona: Tazzzo of Sicily
Alexandria: Katapharak of Egypt
Kiev: Mark of Lithuania
Moscow: Fimcomte of Chernobog
Danzig: Dragoon9105 of Saxony
Tbilisi: Hellbent of Persia
Damascus: Ranger of Israel
Bagdad: Hellbent of Persia
Novgorod: Mark of Lithuania
Sarai: Yami of Astrakhan
Esztergom: Hagbard of Carantania
Ragusa: Hagbard of Carantania
Athens: Blayne of Gaul
Milan: James of Bohemia
Bordeaux: Blayne of Gaul
Fez: Tazzzo of Iberia
Tunis: Nekronian
* means the Areas are currently under some sort of protection and thus cant be scored.

The Fallen:
Saxony(The Professor) 876-895
Holland (King of Men) 876-895
Wallachia(Hadogei) 876-895
Poland(Aquia) 876-924
Estonia(Yami) 876-924
Britanny-Occitania(Hadogei) 895-924
Toulouse(Ursul) 895-924
Uppland 895-924
Crimea(Aevlymar) 924-953
Lotharignia(Clonefusion) 876-983
Milan(MIkesc) 876-983
Tirol(Sancro) 876-1007
Vainfall/Gamechanger(Chad Croatia) 876-1007
Gamechanger(Trebizond) 1007-1068
Castille(Aquia) 924-1068
Goodajoz(Dan) 924-1068
Valencia(Yami) 924-1007
Germany(Golle) 876-1068
Valencia(Mikesc) 1007-1068
Ruthenia(Foelsguard) 924-1087
Goodajoz(Gamechanger) 1068-1087
Occitannia (Hellbent) 876-1117
Nenetsia(Clonefusion) 983-1117
Dacia (Ursul) 924-1117
Castille(Mikesc)1068-1141
England(GisSoldier)1117-1194
Wales(Clonefusion) (1117-1194)
Al Jaziri(Nekronian)1007-1225
Georgia(Yami)1007-1225
Romagna(Alpha)876-1225
Egypt(Zabuzak)1007-1287​

 

[Sid Meier]

A Proper AAR Part II - Gaul AAR Session 16


The Great Instability.


While the Wars for France came to an end, that wasn’t the end to my issues and a long period of troubled times commence.


Due to the mod subjecting larger realms to steep opinion penalties, my realm was… Not quite stable to say the least. This was compounded by when I in order to build alliances with the Hellenic powers, went and converted from Norse to Hellenic.

This bought me alliances and friendship with B5Alpha (Italy), Tazzzo (Sicily), Hadogei (Lothlorien), Sanc (Alps).


While it brought me newfound friendship, it resulted in massive instability as much of my realm was Norse, and would take several sessions before I managed to take things back under control.


This instability limited my ability to fully act on the world stage, I was the single most largest country at this time, as the entire France region was under my control, and no other country at the time came close. Depending on what metric clone was using there was anywhere between 1200 and 1500 dev, and between 200 and 500 dev difference between me and the number 2 at the time.


Around this time Sanc picked a fight with James and with B5’s help crippled and nearly killed James (Bohemia/South Germany) who had recently killed Gollevainen in South Germany.


As a result of this Dragoon was roused from his slumber. Having earlier killed me back when I was in Saxony, Dragoon was quiet and keeping his head down, it served his interests to see me be the largest country. However a line in the sand had been crossed, and he was now woken up.


The stars being right, Dragoon used his Great Holy War to liberate Bavaria from Sanc to give it back to James. From there he pressed forward, crippling Sanc.


At this time, I was extremely paranoid and concerned with Dragoon, and was my number one threat, him killing Sanc was alarming, but also an oppurtunity I hoped to take.


I cajoled the Hellenics and attempted to organize a crusade of swords to protect Sanc’s core lands, and, if successful, go north and eventually cripple Dragoon, and secure my position as the paramount greatest nation in Europe, first amongst all the nations.


However herding the Hellenics was difficult. B5Alpha dragged his feet. Sanc missed two sessions, Hadogei was uninterested, and Tazzzo was interested but far, several needed bribes in order to enter into plans.


However things went south when Sanc finally dropped for sure, which imploded the coalition and ended my only chance at resolving the Dragoon issue in my favour.


From there I kept a wary and paranoid eye on Dragoon but was otherwise sitting content on my hands, I turned my attention south, using raiding to replenish my gold reserves, aiding B5, Hellbent, and Tazzzo in crusading for the Spains.


However as Hellbent’s borders and mine (Hellbent was Burgundy/Occitannia/Aquitaine as per our territory transfer), got increasingly ugly, others got interested in fixing this issue.


On a week in which Hellbent was subbed by Limah, Hellbent was ruthlessly attacked. B5, James and Dragoon attacked me and Hellbent and while it was close at times and Limah handedly handed B5’s ass back to him, we lost to James and Dragoon.


As a result realizing that this situation was going to get increasingly worse for me defending Hellbent, Dragoon approached me with an offer. If I let Hellbent die, I’d be given a significant share of Hellbent’s lands.


It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

 

[lrbaumard]

Session 13
Persia/ Assyria
The sh*t show

Man this session was wiiiiilllldddd. Where to start. I guess lets go chronological order.
So i was attacked by the western coalition for the large duchy of Armenia. It was great timing by them with several of my allies in external/ civil wars. A large part of the Teuton army arrived on my coast about 2 minutes after the DOW. So quickly in fact that I initially thought he had come to raid me, and told him as such, but not, he 'happened' to be have been raiding in the area and could arrive instantaneously. I also took some bad fights, though one where i was defending a mountainous river, i'm not sure how i lost tbh. Then Fim suicided his army into Gauls and the war was over.

What followed was essentially the chain stabbing of lothlorien's rulers in order to weaken his realm. This paid off in several ways. SOME OF WHICH WILL SHOCK YOU

Large revolts were one

This gave me the opportunity to attack to reclaim my territory whilst Ranger attacked separately for his war goal
Then it got really wild.
Gisoldier let a revolt demand time out and so accidentally gave into a revolter. This made him King under the new AI emperor. We wasted no time and took many chunks out of lothlorien in the meantime

Though gisoldier was eventually able to regain control, he had lost many duchies in the process

Because there was so much war this session and the previous session, my plan to build more Great Works fell through. Plus i'm not 100% sure that the province modifiers were worth the same amount of gold's buildings - GWs cost 10s of thousands for me at this point. Maybe this was a mistake on my part, it certainly prevented me from pulling off some nasty mountainous fort modifiers in EU4, but i think i made a decent decision.

This is how the session ended

Unfortunately, this is not how the next session begun....
The GM decided to annull every war in this session

1. Lothlorien conquest of Armenia was ruled illegal: Dragoon used pre-raised levies to fight in the war. I was given 10k gold from Dragoon and 10k gold from Gisoldier. Gisoldier was given the option of giving me the duchy of Mesopotamia (3 counties) or the 20k gold, i was secretely hoping for the 20k gold as its much more worth than 3 counties, and i was lucky enough to get the 20k direct into my bank account
2. All of the conquests by us of Lothlorien were ruled illegal: we had broken a rule, not how the rule was written, but how it was apparently written in the minds of some players. I won't go into it insofar as saying that either you have to play by the rules that are written: you start changing rules to suit different circumstances and you might as well not have rules at all. On account of this decision the Ixian Rus player quit the campaign, which while a decision i can understand, left his allies in quite the lurch.

There was a lot of unhappiness in the discord after this session, with both sides thinking there were in the right. What made things worse was that the actual GM was on holiday this session and his Vice-GM made the call that 2. was illegal. The V-GM was Dragoon, the breaker of 1., though he didn't think it was a rule break. He tried to call the assassination illegal mid session, but he really did not have the equivity to call it such. The GM, 29 minutes after session end also called it illegal, without any discussion with the wider player group, and one can imagine, only discussion with Dragoon. This is not a good way to make fair decisions in my opinion. At the point I was ready to quit, and the other members of the East were too. There were rumblings, most quite obnoxiously from a certain European player, for a vote of no confidence, but this never happened.
Several days later, he finally ruled that 1. was illegal and i would see restitution, but he still maintained that 2. was illegal. This wasn't enough for Fim, who quit, but mollified the rest of us enough.

I don't want to discuss that more, but I will discuss what i think is a very much present, new vs old slot bias (which is most obvious as a West vs. East). Decisions like the one above, like the fact that there was a re-vote on converting even though the rules said it couldn't be for another 2 weeks (this benefits old slot players by the way as it stops the east from being able to catch up). Also to a lesser extent, the whole european coalition whose sole aim was to keep the East weak so that it would not be a threat to them in EU4 (they had no interest in Lothlorien's health for its own sake).However i do get some pleasure from seeing that the entire West failed in its goal, and that all it managed to do was show themselves as merely schoolyard bullies, who has made themselves not only the enemies of the entire East, but also every other new slot opening in EU4.

Assyria is strong
The Middle East is strong
We will endure

 

[dragoon9105]

Mupdate #17 1340-1369

Its the Final Mupdate *Music* And Boy oh boy the last session wasn't quiet.

So lets start with the Quiet Corners of the Map First. In Western Europe things were Quiet. Scandinavia(King of Men), Ireland(Mike), Iberia(Tazzo), Gaul(Blayne) and Bohemia(James) managed to coexist with each other in relative peace.

That is where the butterflies and Rainbows end however as we shift east we enter the Russian and Greek Thunderdomes.

With Fimcomte's departure from Russia and Clonefusion decided to neglect murmurs that he should perhaps, not, in regards to subbing the Slot, Lithuania(Mark), who spent the entirety of the Game in his words 'be terrifying of being chainstabbed out of the game' changed his tune, declaring:

​

And so the Bloody Russian Wars began with all of Eastern Europe(James, Hagbard, Dragoon, Mark) fighting against the Forces of Persia(Hellbent), Astrakhan and Ixian Rus(Clonefusion). The First War, for Lower Russia was relatively short and bloodless with Carantania(Hagbard) doing much of the fighting. The Second war for the Kingdom of Novgorod lasted years with Hundreds of Thousands dying on each side thanks to General Winter, not in Russia mind, General Winter in the Lithuanian Wasteland leading up to the better developed Russian Countryside.

Meanwhile in the South the Forces of Western Europe(Tazzzo, Blayne, Dragoon) held the Line in Greece(Gissoldier) against the Forces Persia and Israel(Ranger/Limah) winning defensive wars the alliance could be bothered to assemble for while other Invasions such as the Invasions of Carantania and Persian Blitzkriegs for Eastern Anatolia went by without much resistance from a mixture of poor morale, confusion and coordination issues. Overhaul the Integrity of the Greek slot has been protected but it has found itself significantly reduced and facing enemies on both sides.

Also Scandinavia once again collapsed into civil war, multiple times, As per usual. A Slight Crisis occured when the Ancient Yngling(King of Men) Line of Scandinavia nearly died out leaving the Throne to the Heir to Lithuania but a child was born before disaster struck.

Religious Map

Cultural Map

Current Standings

​

Continuing our Writeups for last week really we have our Secondary Powers of the World (Though some of these powers have come into quite a bit of land recently)

Bohemia Finds herself surrounded by more powerful nations in every directions. To the North is the Teutonic Empire, Aggressive but of same religion, To the West Lies the Rock of Gaul while to the East lies Carantania which sits upon an End node just out of Reach of the Bohemian grasp. As such Bohemia has many different directions to go and thus can afford to be Opportunist or committal to any of the greater powers around her, she only need be careful of making the correct choice lest she find herself alone or worse, being shackled to a corpse.

Israel benefits from high development provinces, the Highest in the world in fact with some of the greatest state efficiency the world over. As a result Israel can afford to itself governments and playstyles simply impossible for other nations in the world. With Greece potentially on the way out Israel finds itself in a great position to be a comrpomise power, weaker than Carantania and Persia and thus able to expand with less ire being drawn. The Biggest Danger to Israel however is the same thing that empowers it, in a single war she can be decapitated and due to her powerful neighbor of Persia she thus entirely exists at Persia's mercy until she finds allies elsewhere in the world. Until that point, Israel's success or Failure entirely depends on the will of her sponsor great power.

Ireland sits in the relatively quiet British Isles. Locked into a Defensive Alliance with the Teutonic Empire she is secure on her land border and thus able to strike out to unite the North Sea, or Colonize, both, turn on the Teutonic Empire with allies to retake England or set out for colonies on the Mainland. The one common factor however is that Ireland will need a navy and it will need trade, or it can and will starve and die.

Scandinavia or the Yingling Rike finds itself in a situation it has found itself countless times before, and so I dont really feel I need to Give King of Men any advice, He has seen the dying of stars and Nuclear war, He knows what he is doing, Though I will say, last time a southern Strategy didn't particularly work out, So perhaps a different one might be in order. Though one can always try try again.

Astrakan sits on the edge of the world staring down the oncoming Lithuanian Empire from the West and the Persian Empire in its south, I have one real recommendation for Astrakan given the situation, Push as hard Eastwards as possible and dont stop. To the West lies costly wars with great powers that Astrakan cannot afford, to the East lies potential diplomacy and expansion in the future and thus security. That isnt to say never look west, no no, take opportunities when they come but keep an eye on survival first.

Arrakis (Arabia for folks at home) Is a nation sitting on the Armpit of the Indian Ocean, With Barren Deserts at home, she must look outwards if she is to find glory and success, luckily such outwards regions have just opened. Gold mines in Africa, Trade in India, the Endless wealth of the Indian ocean are hers, provided she has the security at home to go after such things. Persia and Israel are both land based powers with expansion possibility on land, and thus Arabia may find herself being the Portugal of the east, bringing trade into the Persian gulf in exchange for survival and wealth. A possibility not easily overlooked.

Tunis is a nation trapped in North Africa, Tunisia must escape, She has diplomacy with her Western Neighbor Iberia, in which case there only really two options for her, North and East, Northwards lies Italy which is probably of interest to greater powers, East however lies Israel who will likely come for her eventually. Ultimately this doesn't levy Tunis with very many options, she needs to expand, or she'll be left to base in the Mediterranean Sun.

Development: (Dev/Nation/Player)
Lithuania 1433
Carantania 1248
Gaul 1222
Nordmark 1181
Persia 1134
Magna Graecia 1125
Bohemia 981
Israel 936
Lothlorien 763
Chernobog 658
Norway 655
Ireland 641
Arrakis 549
Astrakhan 383
Tunisia 360

Our Final Development Scores coming out of Ck2, Obviously Carantania and Lithuania both being great powers and expanding multiple times this session have led to them displacing Gaul and Nordmark. This Leaves us with Persia and Iberia as our remaining great powers not too far behind Nordmark and Gaul to be considering revolving door powers.

King of Men's Hyper Warmongerer Score Chart:
TO BE ADDED LATER

Victory Points:
Paris: Blayne of Gaul
Constantinople: GisSoldier of Lothlorien
Julich: Blayne of Gaul
Rome: Tazzzo of Sicily
Jerusalem: Ranger of Israel
Mecca: Sauron of Arabia
London: Dragoon9105 of England
Prague: James of Bohemia
Sevilla: Tazzzo of Magna Graecia
Sjaelland: Dragoon9105 of Nordmark
Barcelona: Tazzzo of Sicily
Alexandria: Blayne of Gaul
Kiev: Mark of Lithuania
Moscow: Fimcomte of Chernobog
Danzig: Dragoon9105 of Saxony
Tbilisi: Hellbent of Persia
Damascus: Ranger of Israel
Bagdad: Hellbent of Persia
Novgorod: Mark of Lithuania
Sarai: Yami of Astrakhan
Esztergom: Hagbard of Carantania
Ragusa: Hagbard of Carantania
Athens: Blayne of Gaul
Milan: James of Bohemia
Bordeaux: Blayne of Gaul
Fez: Tazzzo of Iberia
Tunis: Nekronian
* means the Areas are currently under some sort of protection and thus cant be scored.

The Fallen:
Saxony(The Professor) 876-895
Holland (King of Men) 876-895
Wallachia(Hadogei) 876-895
Poland(Aquia) 876-924
Estonia(Yami) 876-924
Britanny-Occitania(Hadogei) 895-924
Toulouse(Ursul) 895-924
Uppland 895-924
Crimea(Aevlymar) 924-953
Lotharignia(Clonefusion) 876-983
Milan(MIkesc) 876-983
Tirol(Sancro) 876-1007
Vainfall/Gamechanger(Chad Croatia) 876-1007
Gamechanger(Trebizond) 1007-1068
Castille(Aquia) 924-1068
Goodajoz(Dan) 924-1068
Valencia(Yami) 924-1007
Germany(Golle) 876-1068
Valencia(Mikesc) 1007-1068
Ruthenia(Foelsguard) 924-1087
Goodajoz(Gamechanger) 1068-1087
Occitannia (Hellbent) 876-1117
Nenetsia(Clonefusion) 983-1117
Dacia (Ursul) 924-1117
Castille(Mikesc)1068-1141
England(GisSoldier)1117-1194
Wales(Clonefusion) (1117-1194)
Al Jaziri(Nekronian)1007-1225
Georgia(Yami)1007-1225
Romagna(Alpha)876-1225
Egypt(Zabuzak)1007-1287​

 

[lrbaumard]

Session 14
Persia/ Assyria
The end

[I can't find my screenshots, i'll have another look in the steam folder later]

So this was the final session before conversion and there were some important details specific to this session:

1. any conquered territory would be coreable this session
2. any inprogress buildings would not be carried over into the converter

What this meant was huge sums of money being funnelled into construction work (probably 100k of gold spent on buildings alone by me) and war. Lots of war.
The first war was a complete surprise, with the departure of the previous Russia player, the East was keen to get a sub on the slot so we would not lose a key, strong ally. What we didn't count on was the fact that Lithuania's deals with the previous player was now void and an enormous coalition of Western players (pretty much every single European power) attacked Russia. I was called in but stayed steadfastly neutral, i didn't even raise my levies - there was no way we were winning that one. The war dragged on for years and years, hampering my ability to raid effectively which was a pain, but finally Lithuania won, ripping out a huge chunk of land from one of Russia's king vassals.
While this war was raging, and the West distracted, i urged Israel (also subbed) to invade Lothlorien and though it looked close for a while, they managed to win. I then took advantage of Lothlorien's weakness to attack for Mesopotamia. They promptly surrendered.
Lothlorien was attacked again from the West by Carantania, giving Israel and myself another opportunity to take a ducky. I managed to completely Blitzkrieg the war, rushing my army to the capital, surprising his troops there and getting to 100% before his allies could react.

With these two duchies, i now no longer had a border with Lothlorien and could focus on raiding and internal building. My ruler was a God-king, who i hoped to survive until EU4 where he would become an equally God ruler there. However the West took their revenge on Israel, in a very last gasp, 20 minutes before the end of the session attacking en masse (Lothlorien, Iberia, France, Germany, Bohemia) to retake a duchy. I raised my troops, marched into lothlorien... and then my ruler immediately died. By the time we figured out a way to re-ally, the war was pretty much over. Some terrible luck there, whilst we might not have won the war, i think we could have stalled it out until the end of the session and CK2.

I consoled my self with using my full levy stack and retinue to raid india in the last 10 minutes, trying to gain as much gold as possible into my treasury for ducats conversion in EU4.

There was so much more to talk about this session that what I have described, it was a very busy session. Russia lost another war to Lithuania with another huge tract of land ripped out.
Astrakhan abandoned their Tengri brothers to defend Lothlorien
Overall it was a pretty exciting session which i did extremely well out of. Lothlorien was weakened, but not destroyed, Assyria was at its maximum borders and was in the top 5 of nations and the only new slot position there.
The European attempt to curb Assyrian power had failed, the coalition led by Germany had failed. The amount of wasted money, time and levy spent attempting to stop me was huge, and it was for nothing.

With the conversion into EU4, the diplomatic landscape of the world is changed.
Russia is dead, with Lithuania and astrakhan fighting over the remains
Lothlorien is changing hands, and unlike its previous owner, they might actually be sensible and attempt some diplomacy.
Already there are talks of war between the powers of Europe and the hug-box might soon be breaking apart
Through it all, Assyria remains strong

 

[King of Men]

I dont really feel I need to Give King of Men any advice, He has seen the dying of stars and Nuclear war, He knows what he is doing

Eh. I know what not to do in a number of games we're no longer playing. I would totally crush you in EU2.

 

[Sid Meier]

Tentative Gaul AAR for EU4

We finally are starting EU4 this week, this aar is going to be a bit last minute and rushed because I honestly forgot about it, but here we go! We convert from CK2 to EU4; there are approximate twenty and one players; approximately I think around 4 to 5 are new to the campaign, though not necessarily new to megacampaigning in general.


Returning from past glories and catastrophes is Gollevainen. A long time Megacampaign alumni, he has participated and been a mover and mover of previous campaigns. Many campaigns, probably as many campaigns as I have been in. We have often been allies though increasingly recently we have been enemies. It is quite unfortunate, I don’t know what went wrong for things to have gotten so bad between us, Q_Q.


Clonefusion isn’t new, and is our GM, but due to *several* deaths in a row in Crusader Kings 2 had sworn off playing a real nation until EU. Clone is now playing in India, I am typing this mid session quite hastily so some information is out of date for the pre-session save, but only 6 years have passed, so maybe this is accurate in a more “hollistic” manner.


Clone’s nation is located in southern India, the nation of Venad. He mades 24 ducates a tick, maximum manpower of 20,000, and a maximum army size of 31,000. It will be a long time before he can aspire to great power status with only 301 development.


Another returnee is Steifellecker. He was Ayutthaya and was in a long running rivalry with another returnee player Laxspartan. The two had a contentious relationship and they would regular beseech me that game to take their respective sides. Laxspartan was Indonesia, clearly a water rat and land rat situation; however, they were consistently at odds. I desired both as protectorate states, and as such did my best to diffuse the situation; but they wanted to fight and fight they did. While I wasn’t directly embroiled in their conflicts directly, my attempts to not take sides and to stay above it all left them easily frustrated, and opened the door for foreign infiltration. Laxspartan would betray me, and while Steif was loyal and aided me; in the end the war curtailed my ambitions for that campaign. Neither a big fish in a small pawn, or a moderately sized fish in a much larger pond and with existential threats I threw my lot in with Mark and we ended up attacking Steif. I felt bad about it; but I didn’t see any other choice if I wanted to remain relevant into Victoria 2.


Gollevainen who I mentioned above, appears to be some sort of weird amalgamation of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. With 447 development he’s in a much better on paper position than Clonefusion in Venad; though with only 22,000 manpower and 27,000 force limits it’s not much. Geographically though…. Geographically… Oh dear.


As the Timmurids, Gollevainen is surrounded by Laxspartan in the north, who is Kyrgyzistan and quite large. And currently has two to three vassal states adjacent to Gollevainen’s north. Gradually hemming him in. To the West Gollevainen is flanked by Assyria, which is not an enviable position to say the least, as Assyria is one of the game’s foremost great powers. And can presumably easily trounce any of its neighbours in India. It will be quite the balancing act for the indian players, for Clone, Lax, Golleain, and the other new players, to balance between their own self interest to expand and dominate, vs containing Assyria and insuring he doesn’t overwhelm all of them.

 

[laxspartan007]

The year is 1444, and Uzbek is in turmoil. The majority Kyrgyz peoples realize that the minority Uzbek are weak against the masses. The peasants push against the monarchy, the are unrelenting for change. Alas the ruling minority knows their time has come but they stick to their riches and fight back against the mob to maintain ruling authority. The end result is that Uzbek is renamed The Kyrgyz Republic and the populace does not recognize Uzbek as an accepted culture. The ruling party is angry but they hold no power over the majority, and must earn back their place among the cultures of this land they administer.

The new, reborn Kyrgyz Republic has agreed to keep the same flag for now and leave the leaders to lead while they live in prosperity. The public demands riches as they have lived in low development and squalor for long enough! We have multiple southern neighbors that are small and look ripe for the plunder. We are a quite fair people and will look at vassalization as we do not like the thought of being the reason of a nation state to stop existing.

We must raise a new army as we dissolved the standing army and liquidized all the equipment as they were loyal to the current Uzbek rulers. New castles and walls must be erected along our borders as we have some formidable foes and allies along the west and southern borders. We must show them a hard target and a stoic face when it comes to the titans sniffing for weakness.

We are reforming the military to be more cavalry focused to reflect upon our stepps roots and push the enemy back to the west where they came from! Military ideas will be first with expansion on the horizon. There is a vast wilderness to the north east that must be conquered by brave colonialists. This we will call the great Siberian wastes. This area is cold and harsh and not foreboding, but it is plenty worth it for our hardy peoples to populate and spread out.

We have been given assurances from the great powers that there will be no titanic wars near us or India for the next 80ish years. This is good news and lets us prepare our fortifications and get ready for the upcoming wars for resources in the area. Our relations seem warm but weary. We all know that we must be the biggest baddest nation in the area to ward off a potential predator. Wars are only fought if they are profitable, and the goal is to make any war on our land as costly as possible.

In conclusion, the newly minted Kyrgyz Republic has a lot on its mind and will be measuring up against its neighbors in the decades to come.

 

[lrbaumard]

Session 1 EU4 8/9/19 - Assyria

Well theres a lot to talk about both in terms of pre-session and during session activities. To keep this AAR under novella length i'll try and stick to summaries

Pre-session:

• So coming out of CK2, i find myself in a strong position occupying strong, defensible mountainous terrain, with my core development protected behind them
• As a tengri nation and with bonuses to cavalry ratio i decided to lean into the cavalry playstyle both in terms of my idea set and army composition
• To that end i created myself 2 idea sets that heavily focus on military and cavalry power, with late game finishers moving to the benefits of artillery power. In the auction i got the first idea set i created, which was my second choice of the 2 with slightly more focus on a tall playstyle over a wide, and swapping some cavalry power for late game morale and fire. I was still happy with it as its still a very strong set
• In the government auction round i won myself Tsardom, though it cost me almost all my points. It was my 2nd choice, so i was happy with getting it. However Mark made me an offer for a swap for the Ottoman goverment which loses out on states, the ability to claim whole regions but gained the Janissary infantry, pashas and never having to worry about getting PU'd. After a long time deliberating i made the trade for the Otto goverment
• With my idea set, Tengri religion and Janissaries I now had myself an extremely powerful nation set up going forward
• With the basics out the way, i then moved onto the most important part of the nation creation: cosmetic appearance. I spent way too long fiddling with unit graphics to get the infantry and cavalry i wanted, though i think it was worth as they look pretty bad-ass now (also note changed flag, which again... I spent way too long on):

During the session:

• With my diplo endeavours the build up in the preceeding weeks, i thought i would have a fairly quiet few sessions. I knew the new Ottoman/ Greek/ Lar Reign player - Khan - would be looking to reclaim land lost to his predecessor in CK2, but i expected fairly normalized relations between us, and besides my troops were flat out better than his and he would be bleeding on 4 layers of mountainous forts before he got past the 3-10 dev land on our border, not to mention my alliance with the Commonwealth and my own troops.
• With news that he had made a deal with his Western neighbour Carantania, despite having around 300 development in cores on him, it confirmed by suspicions that he would be attacking East. However i felt safe in the 3-way alliance created between myself, Arrakis and Israel. Ha
• What completely blindsided me - usually the more paranoid individual - was the betrayal by Arrakis. Apparently not content with being the Portugal of the East - honestly a slot that i think is a lot of fun, he made a deal with Lar Reign to de-ally Israel, not defend them and essential flip from close-ally to enemy.
• Lar Reign and Carantania attacked Israel, who only had me to defend them. Usually this would not have been an issue with Arrakis on-side, but his betrayal, coupled with the fact that my most vulnerable stage was then (before I had fully built up my troops, replaced all normal infantry with janissaries and gotten my 36% cavalry combary modifier online).

• I advised Ranger to not fight the war, it was not worth the damage to us both and to wait for more opportune circumstances. After they took the war goals and bled some on the anatolian forts, ranger surrendered without a battle fought. Lar Reign gained cyprus, 2 provinces on the northern coast, and the city of Antioch.

• For the keen eyed of you, you will have noticed my prestige throughout the game. This was no poor RNG/ events choices by me. Unfortunately selecting my Ottoman goverment reform at game start brought my from 60 prestige to -25, and i spent all session trying to get it back up to positive. Normally, this would not be such a big deal. However prestige has impacts on your troop morale, income, unrest, and more importantly, monarch power. See my power projection is at 40? At 50 you get 1 MP in every category. To get to 50 you can scornfully insult a rival, giving you +10 PP. This however cannot be done whilst at negative prestige. I lost 100s of MPs because of this, not to mention revolts, lost money etc. and having lower than normal morale for this war. This will hopefully be fixed for the next session but was a real hamstring to my first session
• The rest of the session went better for me, i spent the session min-maxing around my NIs, institution and tech in order to maximise the amount of gold and monarch points i use.
• I am 2 tech levels behind my neighbours in military however have the gold needed to fulfil Renaissance which will give me enough tech points to instantly get to level 7; i am being greedy in waiting until the last possible minute to accept institution to save on gold.
• In other news, i hit my mid game military power spike. I have roughly a third of my army as Janissary infantry, am almost at forcelimit and have hit 36% cavalry combat ability which the highest CA of any player in the game at the moment. Whenever i chose to take mil tech 7, i would not be surprised if i have the strongest army in the game.
• In diplomatic news, there seems to have been some rapprochement and forgiveness between Israel and Arrakis, with misunderstandings and poor communication on both sides seemingly to have led to this. Hopefully going forward both players have learnt a little something about diplomacy.

• In other world news, WW1 started in 1460 over Scotland.
  
  
  
• On the one side Ireland, Teutons, Bohemia, on the other, Scandinavia, Gaul, Commonwealth. The war is yet to be decisive, and I can't really see any of whats going on, but it seems the war might be decided diplomatically over the coming week.
• End of save state:
  

Note: a lot of land changes have been peaceful, with the only war changes (between players), being the 4 provinces i mentioned earlier, with Israel selling the provinces in central Anatolia previously (though i'm not really sure why, seeing as they didn't manage to negotiate a NAP)

 

[King of Men]

PSA: Clonefusion has created the new AAR thread for the EU4 part. See you there.