Test of Skill - AAR

[FJ!]

The Grand AAR of Skåne 1419-1434

The agricultural indigenous populace of Skåne had never been comfortable under the clumsy rule of the Danish King, ganja-user and beerdrinker and totally ungodly as he was. Therefore when in 1418, this wreck of a man (though sadly not so different from his fellow countrymen) suddenly delivered a proposition of independence to the Scanian Governor Naken-Janne, the answer was a great JAO! There was celebrations in the streets of Lund and the gospels from the great Domkyrka could be heard as far as Constantinople. Virgins were sacrificed and drunken revelry was all around. It was a merry time.

The newly crowned king immediately married the ugliest of his nieces to the danish royal prince. Not long there after he commissioned a fleet an invited the petty dane to an alliance. Soon the Norwegian king joined in as well, not wanting to be worse than the dane.

Plans were soon made for an invasion of Sweden. Naken-Janne decided it was better to wait until Sweden was engaged elsewhere and then march without resistance to the swedish capital. Sly as a fox Naken-Janne was!
In the meantime the scanian monarch retired to his plantation on the countryside, setting a good example for his fellow countrymen.

Naken-Jannes glorious plans were soon carried into action as the honorable eastern sovereign of the Livonian Order by declaring war on some petty kingdom not worth mention, drew the stupid swede into the conflict.

Most of the scandinavian mainland was soon in Scanian hands. Alas, the northern winters are cruel and many a scanian suffered by the cold snow and harsh winds. The monarch made the unscanian decision to borrow money from a lokal moneylender(an immigrated danishman, for the record), to draft more willing troops to his cause.

A few years later peace was sued with Sweden, giving Skåne Västergötland, Östergötland, Bergslagen and Hälsingland. Now Naken-Jannes plan was to wait untill the treaty had expired and golp up even more of Sweden, making Skåne the largest nation in Scandinavia. However the previous loan would put a stop to that. As soon as Naken-Janne had paid his dept in cash the treacherous dane, by some small escape in the danish law, immediately gave the honorable Scanian a new loan, with higher interest. This behaviour cost Skåne the chance to attack the German minor Holstein, and the renewal of an invasion of Sweden was put on hold. Naken-Janne was furious, but there was nothing to be done. The almighty god works in mysterious ways, and no mere man can but hope to persuade him. Thus Naken-Janne began a fast and daily prayer to the just and benevolent god, that these loans should we wiped...

Thoughts on Monarch, DP and choice of nation

I made the choice to place an unhealthy line of bad monarchs through the 15th century for the convenience of having greater monarchs later on. The main reason for this was that I as Skåne only have relatively large neighbours, and therefore can fight BB-low wars.

My DP-clicks was +1 Centralized and +2 innovative. This was to offset the impact of the bad monarchs, while not moving too much towards full inno to secure easy access to a large pool of colonists.

I didn't really choose Skåne, since I rather dislike Northern nations with the eternal enemy of harsh winters. Still, the obvious protection given by Östersjön is a relative security. I will do the best of my situation.

Award: Deflation.

MT Calculation: 2 + ((15*20)/(15*15))=3,3333= ~3,0

 

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The "only 3!" was sarcastic ofcourse....then again i forgot i was talking to a swede

Swedes stands above petty danish sarcasm.

 

[Cicero]

AAR Brabant 1419-1435


Pre-game thoughts:
This series didnt begin with the first session but some days before when i had to think about my monarchtable, free dp steps and which nations to chose and how much inflation to bid. These pre-settings have an enormous impact on the future gameplay and thus will shortly discussed in this AAR.


monarchs: i decided to chose strong monarchs for the early game, my first one is a 9-9-9. I thought it was a good idea to pick some strong monarchs early on mainly because of four reasons:
military power: its essential too grab as much ai territory as possible in the early years. a good monarch military rating helps achieving this goal with less casualties.
badboy: since grabbing much ai lands cost a lot of bb its a good think to decrease this bb as soon as possible. monarchs diplo skill helps a lot to control bb.
diplomacy: Brabant is surrounded by lots of 1 prov minor nations. to take care of my bb i decided to diplovassalise a couple of ai´s. monarchs high diplo skill assists diplovassalising and increases the effect of bribing, thus keeping the bribing costs low.
tech speed: maybe the most important reason to chose good monarchs early on. the monarch skills heaviliy affect the tech speed as long as your income is low. if you have an monthly income of 20d, the monthly monarch bonus of 9 for each of the 4 techs and the bonus of 18 for stab is a big help. so the monarch invests 54 in tech and stab, whereas only 20d are invested from income. a 1-1-1 monarch only invests 6d in techs, together with an income of 20d, its 26d invested in techs, against a total of 74d with a 9-9-9 monarch. so the overall techspeed is more than 2.5 times as high.
in the later game when a nation has 300, 400 or more monthly income, the monarch bonus is totally irrelevant.

so why not choose the 10-10-10 in the beginning? because i wanted to save the really uber-monarchs for the early colonising era. the admin skill heavily increases the colonizing chances, i dont want to miss that.


dp settings:
i chose 2 land, 1 innovative. land because its essential to have cheap troops with high moral if you want to crush a lot ai´s in the beginning. innovative just because i love being innovative : lower tech costs and a higher chance to get good events (like manus and such, although im not sure if this is also right in the very first years).
alternative dp choices i thought of: full offensive for higher moral and the leader shock bonus. but id didnt took this because i wanted higher moral and cheaper troops.


selected nation:
My 2 preferred nations were Brabant and Armagnac (god thank i didnt get Armagnac :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: ). So im very happy i got Brabant.
After i inspected the map i chose these 2 nations because of 2 main factors. since the provinces all have same tax, mp and population the produced good is the differencing factor. in the beginning it doesnt make much difference but once the infra gets higher a province producing cloth or wine generates much more payback than one producing fish or wool. both Brabant and Armagnac have a lot high value products in their starting provs or near around them. the second reason is that i wanted a nation on the western coast of europe. we all get our explorers at the same date, so its very important to have a short way to the potential colo areas to grab the wealthiest. sure, Portugal or Scotland have a shorter way, but Moldavia and or Lionian Order and most of the others have a much farther way.




the early years: 1419-1435

On january 1st 1419 the Ciceronian dynasty ascended the throne in Brabant. The holy oracles show they shall rule our glorious nation for the coming 400 years.
The first official act as new ruler was to build baliffs in all provinces. The brabantian citizens are allowed to live in our beautiful nation, so they shall pay for it.
Then lordprotector Cicero the Great inspected his lands and had to realize that Brabant is a quite small nation. And since hes a real megalomaniac guy he quickly announced to massacre all surrounding countries and incoporate them into our nation. So the next step was to strenghten the army, a huge cavalry force was built and soon the starting tresuary was nearly empty.
but Brabant was ready for war and we just had to wait for a competent general. In spring 1419 the first general started his service in the royal brabantian army and the filthy English and their burgundian lackeys were dowed immediately. Heavy cavalry fights in northern France followed. Brabant achieved some victories but lost a decisive battle against evil uber-Herny, the darkest hour in the short brabantian war history: our main force was destroyed, all cavalry lost, both generals killed. The stupid commander was too proud to retreat in time, the tide of war had changed (if this commander wouldnt have died in battle he sure would have been executed). Cicero I. had to decide: continue the war with the left over forces or beg for peace. Wise as he is he chose a compromise. England was sep-peaced for Calais, the burgundians should pay for our loss against the english.
Quickly the army was rebuild and with military access from our french friends Burgundy was invaded easily. All their territory has been occupied and was grabbed in a humiliating peace (except the capital of course).
Some years of peace followed to decrease war exhaustion and to collect cash for buiding ballifs in the new territories.
A few years later Cicero seeks bloody revenge, the english should be punished for our loss one decade ago. So another war was started, this time England hadnt the slightest chance after their forces were destroyed in their war against Scotland. All contintal english provinces are occupied now, we are awaiting their peace offer.



MT calculation:
2+(70.6*20)/(31.3*15)=5

AAR reward: deflation

 

[Cicero]

MT should be 9.

2 + (49.638 * 20) / (10 *15) = 6.6184 (and then rounded up to 7)

do i understand anything wrong? :wacko: or is this a mistake?
this arithmetic says Portugal has a mp cap of 10 at the end of session. we do use the mp cap at the end of session, do we?


i just remember another point. i wrote this in game thread, but GM told me to post it in AAR section, so i rewrite it here:
"i wasnt able to repay my loan. i had about 230d in treasury and clicked repay loan, but i got a new loan with a higher interest immediately. will such little bugs be edited? if the GMs decide to edit such things i ask for erasing my loan and reducing my treasury by 200d."

 

[unmerged(6147)]

OK, all that have lagloans report. We will prolly accept the deletion of max one per nation since it appears no one objects and Aladar is in favour. But only this time. This should be a game of skill after all!

Regarding MP we do use the MP at start. There were too few in favour of JOhn's suggestion.

And we will for sure change the formula. As it is not several players will have an average of 5 in stats next session. We can't have it like that. Perhaps we all must learn how to make square root calculations or we simply scale it down.

 

[King John]

Someone who is skilled with programing should make a program for your MT formula, so all you have to do is punch in everyone's numbers from the stats.

 

[Aladar]

AAR Albania 1434 - 1455​

At the end of Bob The Mediocre I's reign, he decided to carve himself a legacy for all future Bob's to look up too, and a grand campaign against the neighbors in the Balkans were prepared.

Large armies were raised and placed hidden near our northwestern border, when out of the blue the Ottoman Empire declared war on us The armies were sent south instead and after several months OE was overrun and all it's provinses sieged. Some years later peaced was settled, leaving OE only it's capital.

Montenegro now decleared war together with Bosnia and Byzantium. Bosnia and Byzantium was quickly peaced as they had rather large armies, but Montenegro was incorporated into the realm as punishment.

In the meantime the hungarians had made a surprise attack on our neighbor Moldavia, which our new ruler Absolute the Wise I decided to take advantage of. So Hungary and it's allies where attacked and another 4 provinses were gained, 2 from Stiermarken who also became our vassel and 2 from Hungary. This did cost a lot of troops as Bohemia and Austrian troops swept down from the mountains.

For some reason the world did not think much of the new grand empire of Albania, and in the following many years we keept being attack by new nations, which meant that we were at war for many years, which did gain us Karaman as a vassel.

It didn't mean much fighting thou, as we placed several armies as our shorelines, which repelled all attacks, and decent money were made from peacenegotiations.

Despite having the 4th lowest DPR rating, we feel that our nation is strong and will prosper further in the future.

MT: 2 + (125*20) / (84*21) = 3,41
On time cookie: BB reduction
AAR-reward: BB reduction

 

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AAR Scotland 1434-1455​

The unification of Britannia and the vassalisation of Ireland​

Noone touches me with impunity​

We saw it necessary to end the Irish rule in northern Scotland, and in Ireland for that matter, so we had attacked Eire a few years before. The only province that still was Irish was northern Scotland, but we had prepared an army for that, lead by the notourios Cockburn. As Cocburn and his army of around 25.000 brave clansmen arrived at the battlegrounds, the Irish army were already prepared to flee before him, but were held there by the incompetent Irish commander. The result of the war was a complete bloodbath. The Irish army was reduced from 20.000 men to 2.000, which Cockburn swiftly dealt with. Peace was made and all of Scotland was in Scottish hands, Eire was vassalised and Britannia was at last at peace.

We now concentrated on getting our land technology up, and when that had been done, we invested in infrastructure, although we did not reach infra 3.

Mayors had by this time, been promoted in all of Scotland and the cencus taxes doubled and all was well, although this was to be changed by England as they decleared war on us. We sent down our army from Lothian to encounter the English threat, and by God, they were hacked down faster than the Irish had been a few years earlier. We took out every English army and proceeded with occupiyng every English province. We were now offered a treaty which would give us all of Englands provinces in Britannia. We quickly accepted this offer and Britannia was once again at peace.

We now wanted to build a Fine Arts Academy in Scotland, to promote artists all over Europe, and to make some extra money. The only bad thing that happened this past session was that we got an event giving us 3 inflation occured, and we of course misclicked it and got 3 inflation. Although we also got 300 ducats, which enabled us to build the Arts Academy faster than we had planned and in 1455, the first Fine Arts Academy in Europe was finished.

We also saw the need of a navy as quite big, and we more than doubled it in strength this session and we now have the most powerful navy in the world.
At the same time, we had sunk the english navy, which at its prime, was the biggest in the world. We are quite happy with the achievements this session and hope for future prosperity in the nation.

We are also the second most influental nation in the world, mostly due to our big navy. Only Moldavia is ahead of us, but this can of course be adjusted.

---------------------------​

MT Calculation:

2+(194)/(1218)=2.15

Rounded down to 2.

AAR Reward: BB reduction

Reward for being on time: BB reduction​

 

[FJ!]

AAR Skåne 1434 - 1455

No AAR... Damn you Lundakarnevalen!!

MT: 2+((15,4)/(21*39,6))=2,37

 

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Please note:

Scale of any decimals in your losses and add the integers for cavalry and infantry losses and make the division. Then let the result stand. I will cut of the end result down to one decimal.

 

[TheArchMede]

The Danish AAR

[details of vile aggression by Moldovans to be added here]

MT = 2 +(20*97)/(21*39)=4.37 approx

Thank the Moldovan stab under cover of my graphics glitch for a lot of extra MT this time. Clearly I should have sacrificed a few more infantry to push it up a but more but I had not been paying close enough attention to the the MT formula during the game. In future I think I must have a laptop with a spreadsheet ready to keep plugging the figures in, so that I know when a sacrificial attack by 9k infantry is worthwhile.

 

[TheArchMede]

We are also the second most influental nation in the world, mostly due to our big navy. Only Moldavia is ahead of us, but this can of course be adjusted.[\QUOTE]

The Livonian Order will be glad to provide its utmost assistance to Scotland and any other nation that wishes to participate in this eminently desirable adjustment.

 

[-Lyko-]

AAR Naples 1434-1455​

After losing my nation in southfrance to the war against the evil portugal ,i inherited Naples from my dead uncle.. A small but somewhat rich country.(not in income but in their treasure.) Right after i inherited Naples i had to go away on a cruise to india so i left my right hand man Ghouma to take care of my nation while i'm getting a nice sun tan. Not much did happen in naples at the time but i did get reports on a war against aragon witch went really well and we gained 3 provinces in that war. We were still a rich country with alot of money to spend if we got attacked by our war mongers for neighbours. I feared the most that we would get attacked by our northern neighbour Helvetia but that did not happen(luckily).
Helvetia also saw a change of power when a new ruler took control of that nation for 21 years, maybe he was more friendly towards us in naples or maybe he expanded elsewahere or had internal problems that I will never know. I didn't get that many reports on how the nation acted or progressed while i was on the beach, but i didn't care that much of reports because the girls are beautiful and wild and the wine is strong. If u know what i mean .
But i got news that my substitut got lost somewhere in sicily at the end of my vacation so a idiot of politician took over my nation while i was gone and wasted all the money we had into building forts and tripling our army and mulitplying our army upkeep 20 times so that meant that we had no income what so ever for anything else then the army. I stil wonder how the hell the man got lost on sicily, it's like the smallest island ever... Anyway, That stupid politican will get his head cut off when im back or even worse be exciled to live with the tribes on the iberian peninsula( Evil portugal). But that will have to wait for later, i'm off now to a poolparty where everyone have to be naked.My bodygaurds tell me that i'm the only man that will come because i'm the only one left on the island,witch is lucky for me but also very strange. that's reminds me where did that servant go, that took my order of more wine,30 minutes ago. hmmmm


Mt Calculation:

(5*20)/(21*8)+2= (100/168)+2=2.59~3

reward-Money

Edits
1. +847 to treasury.327 for the troops i want to disband and for the forts also so that's 260*2. if u guys can wanan give more then it's ok with me haha.
2 -23k inf and -8k cav
3. sicily back!!!!!
4 hrrmm inflation -1 maybe don't want to be to take to much
5. capitanata and apulia. the AI is building forts there. money back and no forts plz (took KJ advise)
6. no Damn alliance with Byzantium and mozavia.
7. +1 centralization my sub dind't do that.

btw. I didn't get my dp sliders when i change country. i should have 2+land and +1 in cent instead of +3 in innovative

 

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Swiss AAR

AAR Helvetia 1434 - 1455​

Fortifications about the Alpes

It was an age of wars in northern Italy: suddenly at the start the Republic of Venice wanted to extend its land borders and DoWed us, with the help of Savoy, Provence and Papal State. We sent immediately a message to general Eggen about sieging the fortress in Savoie, that fell in 1435 (now it's part of our Nation), then in 1436 he defeated some rebels that wanted to create a free land in Pisa. In the same year the citizens in Provence after a long and successful siege accepted peace offer for money. The Holy Cross army occupied our cities of Spoleto, Pisa and Bologna asking 1 land as war indemnities, but we kept on the war moving our troops towards central Italy. In 1439 we made free Romagna and Marche defeating arriving little ventian army leaded by general Gattamelata and his supporting rebels in Parma. In 1440 also Pisa was free, then we sieged Roma and forced the Pope till annexion. So standing alone the Doge at the end had to accept our peace offer for some money.
We tried to diploannex our vassals (cities of Milano and Firenze, land of Tirol) but there was no success there. During the italian war we were attacked by german hordes coming from the north (Alsace, Lorraine) helped by hostile neighbours (Modena, Dauphinè). After starting a siege in Briesgau they were defeated and accepted peace for money. That peace had short life and at the end of truce the Prince of Strasbourg DoWed us again in 1447, again allied with Modena and Dauphinè. While the army of Emilia was sieging our Pisa, we occupied Modena and in 1448 they were forced to join our Country. After Modena, in 1449 general Eggen moved to Dauphinè and after a long siege the city of Lyon enetered in our possessions.
Being the diplomatic relations with Prince of Tirol improved much, after a long vassalization since 1431, he accepted to acknowledge our authority. Now our borders around Alpes are safer (Albania is a danger?), considering that also Dauphinè was part of a deal with King of Portugal, that was busy in a great war against Spain and wanted to let us have a right border along Rhone river.
Suddenly many portuguese provinces rebelled from central authority in southern France (maybe due to war exhaustion); we wanted to intervene there after a while seeing absence of portuguese troops there. Just while the King of Portugal was asking an help, another war happened due to his vassal Salzburg (supported by bavaria, vassal of Saxony): the confusion really increased there in last year.
In domestic policy many changes happened: our tendency towards innovativeness and offensive was not well accepted , so peasants revolted in 1437, in 1441, in 1445 and in 1451 forcing us to give less centralization, less serfdom, more plutocracy. The only demand by our Ruler was the hiring of a royal painter to make more amusing his Palace in Bern in 1453.

* deflation pls

 

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MT formula:
2 + (20 * 95)/(89 * 21) = 2 + 1900/1869 = 3

 

[unmerged(49182)]

The Danish AAR

Danish?

 

[unmerged(6147)]

AAR MOLDAVIA 1434-1455

From start we had the intention to try not to spend so much money. We had been edited down from 10.6 to 8.6.

We also planned to attack the Golden Horde just a few years after the start.

Ah, how plans can be spoiled.

First Qara Quyunly DOWed, they had a 40k army in the mountains and stepped down on one of my plains provinces (where there is little winter). This was a problem but luckily a polish army came by and defeated them. I then tried an attack into the mountain with my good leader but it failed. At that moment Hungary (with a huge alliance) DOWed. I managed a quick WP in the East and transferred my armies to the West. My faithful allies in Poland did a good work and so did Albania that also were in war with them. So it ended with 3 provinces to us and IIRC 3 to Albania. Hungary is now down to 1 province. However, an annexation is out of the question since Hungary is Emperor and the last thing we would like to see is that a certain northern nation gets hold of that title.

After a few years to regain strength it was finally time for the attack on the GH. We build up to some 80-90k men since it would be a winter war. War went well and it looked very bright while I was clicking away messages on my screen. Whops, there I clicked on one more which turned out to be a peace proposal from the alliance leader Siberia, for 45d to us. Talking about a game of skill… :wacko: I had lost some 40k army so farm for no gain at all

Meanwhile the Livonian Order had made good progress versus Muscovy and peaced out taken their Eastern provinces. But for some reason they did not attack the GH. They were just one province away from Siberia. Well then 5 years later it was time for me again. Now no mistake was done and with surgical exactness (old Swedish proverb) we took those four provinces that meant the Livionian Order were cut off from Siberia. I must say I was quite surprised I was allowed to do this so easy.

At some time here the Livonian Order offered me a RM. Rather sheepishly o I agreed. Well towards the end of this war I could see them laying a claim on Lithuania. OK, so I got some time to make up my mind. I decided I was not yet fit to join the war. I needed to get WE down and build up more armies. I had lost some 60k during the war.

So I rejected the call for help and used the money I had minted during the war for building up a 25k cavalry army to which I attached my shock 5 leader (I was at offensive 9 at this stage). He went up to northern Lithuania and killed of one 10k Lithuania sieging force. It now turned out Archmede had some kind of graphic bug because he asked for a rehost which was made. When we started again my army after a few days attacked his other siegeing army as well and IIRC he retreated with a few living men. After that he made some more tries to attack my armies that were sieging the two provinces he had taken control of. Well neither did these attacks succeed. Then he tried to move a 30k army into a forest province but my leader was still the winner (although I did not even go to 100% maintenance).

This was the situation at the end of the session. Meanwhile Lithuania has taken control of the Livonian capital and are sieging another one. In the Southwest our ally Poland fights with Pommerania and other assorted AI rabble the Prince of Riga has assembled in his alliance. We stay true to our friends from start, the mighty Polish and Lithuanian nations.

And yes, the inflation. Well we incurred 10.6% in the first session and only 7.5 in this so we are making progress. Further more, because we have high BB and also for a specific undisclosed reason we believe we will spend less money the next session.

MT = 2 + (77*20 / (62 * 21) = 2 + 1540/1302 = 2 + 1.18 = 3.18

---------
deflation

 

[unmerged(30948)]

The people of Dauphinè will join the Realm of Helvetia in the game then.
Our monarch sent his son to Lisboa as ambassador to grant right friendship.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Someone who is skilled with programing should make a program for your MT formula, so all you have to do is punch in everyone's numbers from the stats.

I want to avoid that work. I want you, the players, to do the calculation and report the final number to me. It is a question of distributing the work load.

 

[Tonioz]

AAR Saxony 1434-1455

Saxony state developped greatly during last 20 years. At first our insane monarch for starting period 1-1-1 has finally died, which allowed to suffer from him minimal way, getting neighbor bonus at techs at the same time.

At 1434 Saxony was in wars with Baden, Wurtemberg, Bavaria (Masovia joined them later). Several months after the start Mecklemburg, Brandenburg, Holstein, Bremen and Oldenburg alliance dowed us. During this war Luxembourg, France, Bretagne and one french vassal dowed us too. Well, while we effectively fought this hordes, Brabant decided to jump at north seacost minors, and started to vassalize Oldenburg, Bremen and Holstein, gaining Schleswig province as well.

Saxony decided not to resist high-rank Brabant leader and decided not to initiate open conflict vs 5-5-5 leader, but then we watched our vassals to annex those Brabant vassals, using separate peaces to gain money, and all this missions were completed successfully. When finally the war were over, Saxony was with over 1300 ducats without no minting at this game at all.

Tonio The Diplomat 8-6-6 came to our country and for 2-3 years we had event of +2 all skills of monarch. But anyway a lot of ducats were spent for dip-annexation. At first Hannover and Munster refuced from annexation about 5 times. Kleves broke vassalization while the attempt. But at least i could dip-annex Wurzburg. Then finally 5 provinced Hannover agreed to our offer, and after that Saxony was ranked as big state, and everybody else was happy to agree to be dipannexed - Munster, Gelre, Friesen, Palatinat. The only failure was single attempt of dipannexing Bavaria.

At the end the war against Bohemia was started to settle better our south-east borders. After the session Rhine treaty with Brabant was signed to the pleasure of both monarchs.

-6 Badboy for AAR and being before 19:00 CET (shame on me, i wrote AAR for BB rating, i understimated with monarchs how much free space i`ll get)

MT calculations:
2 + (39*20)/(21*90)=2,41 (weird MT formula)