Test of Skill - AAR

[Cicero]

AAR Brabant 1434 - 1455

This session had its ups and downs, the downs could have been avoided if i hadnt made some stupid mistakes. but thats life...


1434 - 1454, the era of lost vassalls

Anno domini 1434 the war with England reached its end. The beaten english begged for peace and offered 3 provinces south of Paris. The brabantian generals demanded to continue the war to grab all 5 english continental provinces but since we dont have fleet a siege of London is illusional, thus 3 provs was the maximum we could gain. So the peace was signed.

A short peace followed, balliffs were built and we managed to diplo-vassall Strassbourgh and Dauphine. Since most of the french minors were allready annexed by Brabant, Helvetia or Portugal wise Emperor Cicero decided to look north to incorporate some north sea states into our realm. Military access through saxonies west german vassalls was signed and we dowed the north sea ally: We grabbed Schleswig, Oldenburg, Bremen and Holstein were force-vasselled after some minor fights and a short sieges (the 2 brabantian 5-5-5-1 uber generals accelerate the ai bashing enormously), Mecklembourgh paid some ducats for peace.

Within a very few years we gained 5 new vassalls, 2 by diplomacy, 3 by force, great Cicero was pleased with his deeds. But unfortunately he forgot to bring them into his ally. So all 5 vassalls were lost in the coming years: The 3 north sea states were annexed by saxonies vassalls and the only thing we could do was to sit and watch. Strassbourgh dowed us and is currently still in war with Brabant, Dauphine was annexed by Helvetia (although the helvetian ruler promised not to touch my vassalls).

After this disappointing experience we managed to force vassall 2 other nations as compensation: Holland and Normandie. Brabant is in a quite stange situtation right now. Our vassalls Holland and Normandie are in war with each other, so we cant ally them. Additionally Brabant is in war with France, Paris is occupied. But the remaining french province is occupied by Normandie (which has a seperate war with France). hopefully this weird situation can be solved at the beginning of next session.


MT: 2+(71*20)/(53*21)= 3.3
(this is calculated according to what is written in Daniels first post of AAR thread, im not definately sure if something has changed in the mt mathematics till today :wacko: )

reward: BB reduction

 

[King John]

AAR Portugal 1434-1455

The country was a mess. Rebels everywhere, war exhaustion at the max, and hardly any money. I had two loans, but income was so low that minting was hardly viable. So I had to take my money from the AI first, then try to get peace finally so WE would go down and I could start collecting money from census taxes.

I had already conquered Bourbonais and French provs in western Gaul, so was able to loot those and collect a good amount of ducats for minting around march, allowing me to pay off one of my loans. The other one was paid off through the peace I accepted from my vanquished foes- about 200D all together between France and Bourbonais.

And thus peace was established as well. In a few years, census taxes began boosting coffers nicely at about 100D a year. When WE was down all the way, I dow'd provence and took maine from them. An English prov in northern France defected to me about this time too.

The war with provence embroiled me in a war with several other countries- Genoa, Venice, Salzburg, and Luxenbourg. The knights were to join in as well. Genoa was easily occupied, and many battles were won against the Venetians who repeatedly tried to invade Gaul. Salzburg, after many attempts at invasion, was finally conquered and made a vassal of the realm. After a while, the knights in Rhodes were conquered as well. It's only a matter of time before a peace is settled. I merely wait for them to scrounge together enough money to adequately pay me off.

One other major developement was the sale of Dauphine to Switzerland for 600D. The money can be used later on to build a manufactury, I think. Though it might have to wait until after Castille is subjugated.


BB reduction



MT = 3 (2.837) 2 + (20 * 51) / (58 * 21)

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Do not round of the numbers at the end. I will cut of anything more than one decimal - since the leader generator accepts one decimal.

Peculiar no one but Archmede made any comment to my latest suggestion for MT system. Well, he who is silent agrees

 

[unmerged(6147)]

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

Elio, I told you I want the MT in your AAR. Read the instructions!!!! Luckily for you I spotted this post of yours anyhow so it will be done.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

MT: 2+(71*20)/(53*21)= 3.3
(this is calculated according to what is written in Daniels first post of AAR thread, im not definately sure if something has changed in the mt mathematics till today :wacko: )

No changes has been decided upon for tomorrow. But for the session after that one we will prolly do as I have suggested a few days ago.

 

[-Lyko-]

AAR Naples 1455-1472​

The Time of Expanding​

As we came back from our vacation we looked upon nation and then upon the world. We started to realise that we were not a first rate country at the time and we had to expand to meet with the on going imperialism in the world.

The first thing we did was to look on our neighbours to see whom we can attack. Helvetia? even tho they are in civilwar, they are still a big nation with alot of manpower. We meet with their ruler and both agreed that we didn't have any intrest in eachothers at the moment but possible some land trade might be in affect. Albania, they are considered our friends at the moment. Venice, genora,aragon and the knights seems to be the most likly targets and some african provinces also. but both genoa and the knights were occupied by portugal at the moment and would probably be annexed anytime soon, but that later turned out be wrong.

The First war against Venice

We started of with declaring war on venice. None of their allies honored their alliance so we had a easy war against venice. evne tho their fleet was almost equal in strenght as ours we focused our fleet on big battles instead of spreading in around in the medittearanean like venice did. Huge mistake on their side. We crushed their fleet and started occupying their islands. after a few years of war, we occupied all of their islands that we did know of and got a peace offer that we accepted. In that peace offer we took control of 3 islands out of 6 known venice provinces.
After that we sought conquest in africa but by the time we were at war with venice, albania had grabbed the rich provinces in the mameluk empire alexandria and a other province with we can't pronounce in our language witch was very rich in gold. So we tried to take out some other weak african nation and grabbed 3 provinces from them. This wasn't the best conquest as those provinces costed more then they generated in tax and goods. so we left them on their own hoping that they would rebel and yes they did. We established a new nation under our control hoping that they would annex they rebel towns later on( they are still under rebel control)

The Second war against Venice + allies

This time Genoa joined venice and so did Castille.even tho they were half their former size they proved to be a problem for us later in the war. Genoa have 2 islands in the medditereanian sea that we wanted and venice had still 1 island and one other province bordering the black sea. so we started occuping venice and genoan islands in the beginning hoping to take them all when we threaten their capitals. The war against genoa and venice was easy. They only problem was that genoa had 30k in their capital giving us a impossible mission to take all the provinces in one war. While our fleet was fighting of the new built fleet of venice and genoa, Castille sneaked 15k men upon one of our islands and took control of it after 12 months of sieging and failed assaults from our part. but at the end of the war when our forces was done taking controll of Venice islands, we finally crushed the Castillian troops and retoke our province back. much thanks to our fleet witch killed the castillian reinforcement.

We had taken control of everything exept the Genoan capital so we only could get 1 island from and that meant that another war against them would soon happen. but we took all the provinces from Venice but our war score was to small to vassalize them and Helvetia also made it cleare that they wanted Venice so it wasn't a problem for us. Also we didn't want a war against Helvetia at the moment as our nation suffered greatly in our economy from the wars we had these past 17 years.


So the last 17 years we doubled our size and army. we probably tripled our fleet size but we didn't get a huge different in our income, and that we will take care of in the next session as we ended this session just at the end of a war.

The next session we will probably see a Naples in peace. Trying to build up our forces and economy. During this 17 years we saw a rapid increase of the albanian navy witch we can't allow because our fleet will be the only defence against them if they turn out not to be our friends in the future. There were sometimes we thought that they would invade when they had their fleet with troops outside our mainland ready to land but after some diplomacy, they sailed away to not be seen again on our water.

Rewards:
On time-BB reduction
AAR reward-Deflation

Mt calculation
1+ (3 *0.5)+ .5 * ((37 * 20) / (43 * 17)) = 3

 

[FJ!]

AAR Skåne 1455-1472
​

In the year of our lord 1455, the nation of Skåne was plagued by the rule of Roger-Bert af Lund. Danish in heritage, he had inherited a weekness for liquor, slothfullnes and an inability to have children. How he ever rose to the throne of Skåne was a great mystery. Luckily alas was it that he had confident advisors, who against all odds managed to avoid the greatest of the futures obstractles.
Roger-Bert, having usurped the throne from the even more incompetent Bodil the Mad(Bodils 20 years of sovereignty is unrecorded, as this passage in scanian history is regarded as non-existant in scanian eyes.), was at once advised to expand the royal fleet. Luckily he agreed.


Early in 1456 an emmissary from the king of Scotland arrived in the port of Malmö. Per his request, he was at once escorted to the capital of Lund to see Roger-Bert. The scottsmans offer of 150d for the norwegian islands of Orkney, Faeröer and Island was declined, and the ambassador was abruptly given a small raft to row his way home. The ship was confiscated by the Royal Navy.

A declaration of war soon followed. Luckily a mysterious advisor named FJ! managed to set Roger-Bert in a drunken stupor that were to last for years, with only few a few occational months of relative soberness.

Thus the vast Scottish fleet was at first defeated by the superiour Scanians. A series of victories saw the scotts turning sail and seek port on the northwestern german shores. Not long thereafter, the scanian fleet layed anchor just off the coast and the enemy fleet was trapped. A scottish army that had disembarked was chased down and defeated, reducing their numbers by the thousands.

Alas, the string of successfull victories was to be interrupted by Roger-Bert. Having just recentrly woken up with a severe hangover, he at once set out to command the Scanian fleet in the defence of the Straits. Sadly, advisor FJ! was not in time to prevent the disaster, and the courageous scanians were defeated. The Scotts, realizing this breakthrough, at once rallied and scattered their opponents.

Thus it was that Skåne had to return to Status Quo. A deal was made with the Scotts of future military access.
Norway was soon defeated and the all so important islands were ceded into filthy scottish hands.

After the war FJ! ensured the revival of the scanian navy. Skillfully he dug into every pocket availible and produced a fleet undeniably larger than the one built before the war.

On the home front, FJ! managed to entice foreign investors to start industries of Naval Supplies, debating that the scanian forests and skill were far superiour than any other nations.(2 Naval manus by random events )

The infrastructure was expanded and enhanced. Something that might be called a highway was build between Lund and Malmö. Schools were constructed in rural areas, and mines were made even more efficient by the skilled hands of scanian labourers.

As the year of 1472 drew to an end, work was still being done on improving roads, mines and schools. Despite the incompetent monarch and sad defeat, Skåne has a bright future.

MT-calculation Skåne: 1+(2,5*0,5)+0,5((24,2*20)/(39,1*16))=2,25+0,774/2=3,02

2,5 were to be the previous sessions MT-value, ¿verdad?

AAR Award: Deflation

 

[Lord Ederon]

Livonian Order 1455-1472​

War new regent found his country in when he took over his office was concluded by white peace with Moldavia right away. Poland and Lithuania were stubborn and refused the same solution of this conflict. First, we had to repell invaders form our own country, then we threatend them on their own soil. That proved to be fruitful (and well know) strategy and our countries could soon enjoy mutual peace.

After this war it was decided to concecntrate on econimic development. Colonies were expanded to cities, merchants were given free hand to overtake neigbouring centers of trade. To be able to succeed in evergrowing competition of traders from other european countries, government invested heavily in trade infrastructure, institutions and schools. This process is not going to take years, but whole decades.

During the reign of king GM3 Capablanca, Pskov and Yaroslavl - former vassals - became integral part of the country. Muscowy was vassalized and relations improved with Sweden. Our diplomats failed to convince Sweden to join our aliance though.

At the dusk of regents reign, old cause was open and war declared on Moldavia. For the province of Vyatka and glory of the kingdom.

Reward: it's up to perm, but I'd suggest -3BB. Livonian Order is country with lowest BB among players and there is plenty of room to expand in. Thus lower BB is only good thing. Deflation is not bad option either.

 

[unmerged(49182)]

AAR Scotland 1455-1472


The defeat of Scandinavia and how we got Iceland​

Noone touches me with impunity​

The Absolut Clan had now gotten control over Britannia, and now sought control over the islands around it, namely The Orkney Islands, The Faroe Islands and Iceland. These provinces were incorporated in Scotland after quite some years at war, which you will be told about in this tale.

We had sent an emissary to Malmö in hope of achieving our goals peacefully, the emissary was recieved accordingly and was given the best of care, but when he introduced the offer made by the Scottish King, he was thrown out of the castle and he was told to deliver this message to the Scottish King:

"Did you really think we would accept that?!"

The offer in question had been 50 ducats for each of the provinces mentioned above. When the Royal Scottish Court recieved this message the nacy was immidiately reinforced and less than a year after the negotiating Scotland decleared war upon Norway, as they were the ones owning the islands, and as we had so cleverly calculated, Skåne joined their allies.

The Scottish fleet, the biggest fleet in Europe, was sent to Jylland with a small army in order to take the province. This objective was achieved rather quickly and we now withdrew to northern Germany. Now it was time for the Scandinavians to retaliate, and so they did. After some fierce battles, The Royal Scottish Fleet was ordered to make a strategical withdrawal to Holland and await reinforcements. Meanwhile, our army in northern Germany fough the Skånians and lost utterly. With only a third of the army left, we withdrew to Berlin. The fleet was at this point reinforced and was sent out to annihilate the Skånian fleet. After a few battles, our fleet was yet again withdrawing. And this pattern repeated itself one more time, but the fourth time, Skåne was defeated in Öresund, their fleet was now only a shadow of its former self and we could now initiate sieges on the islands in the Baltic Sea and Öregrund. After Köpenhamn and Jylland had fallen, an agreement was reached and Skåne was spared from the wrath of our warriors.

Now it was time to strike at Norway, which was the ones owning the islands, and after a buildup of the Scottish Royal Army, we sailed towards Bohuslän, where we initiated a siege. Right after we had gotten there, the last of the islands fell to us, and a few days after, a Norwegian emissary arrived in Edinburgh, bringing a peace proposal involving the islands and a modest amount of gold. Norway changed its mind after being utterly defeated in southern Norway by our superiour warriors.

Peace had now come to Scotland and we began to tech infrastructure and reached new levels within that area, at the same time, we sought for more modern weapons so that we could strike fear in our opponents. We had no success in this though.

Portugal had now been in war for centuries and rebels were tearing apart the nation, so we sent a small taskforce to help Portugal. The provinces in southern France were quickly liberated and a rebel army was annihilated. We are sorry for not being able to help earlier but we had a war of our own to wage. A year or two later, a civil war broke out in Portugal and the Scottish Expeditionary Force in Portugal was doubled. We dispatched soldiers to France and southern Iberia, and they are standing there as we speak, trying to reestablish the Portuguese Monarchy. We wish them all well and if all goes well, more soldiers will arrive to help Portugal.

-------------------------

MT Calculation: 1+(1.5*0.5)+.5*(29673*20)/(47000*17)=1.665

Rounded up to 2.5 I guess.

This is starting to get a tad complicated, took some time to calculate it, if you come up with a new formula if this doesnt work or for some other reason, please keep it more simply or I shall bug Daniel with a lot of questions.

AAR Reward: BB Reduction

Reward for being on time: BB Reduction​

 

[unmerged(6147)]

AAR MOLDAVIA 1455-1472

For several reasons that will remain undisclosed it was decided that the speed of expansion was too high. Instead we played a peaceful session where we only grabbed one province, a stray COT that happened to be available. As was Alexandria. It has during the first sessions greatly surprised us that no one took it. It is just about the first province one takes in SP when playing SP, well perhaps not first but definitely within 20 years from the start if you play a meditteranean nation. My guess is that players play too little SP to really master early EU gameplay as here, when we start in 1419 and not in 1492 or 1520. Finally Albania took it and iwth a nice gold province. We congratulates our neighbours for this nice effort.

It was with a certain sadness we watched as Portugal lost and retook provinces all the time, lost through defections and declarations of independence, ever increasing her BB.

Our income increased nicely and we could maintain 2nd place in income after Saxony who chose to annex 8 provinces more and go beyond the BB limit.

Meanwhile our BB is now down to the 20s.

Due to the peaceful play our inflation only grew by 2.1%. A record number for us in such an early session.

DP slider wise we started by ARI +3. Then we went to Offensive 9. This session we went to ARI 9 and then got an event that put us at ARI 10. Our 2nd move was therefore towards serfdom to get better control of stab costs.


MT CALCULATION

Moldavia controls all her MP-generating provinces.

1 + 1.5 + 0.5 * ((14*20) / (77*17)) = 2.5 + o.5(280/1309) = 2.5 + 0.5*0.21 = 2.6

-------------

REWARDS: BB reduction

 

[Ampoliros]

The Time Of Troubles (1455 - 1472)​

Somewhat to my surprise the grand Empire of Saxony was entrusted to me in 1455. Having no other plans for the time being I elected to do my best for this most magnificent of all empires.
At the beginning the noble Empire of Saxony was at war with the vile & evilsmelling Bohemians, the fiendish Austrians and the backward peasants of Hungary. This war was easily won, the hostile armies defeated and all enemy provines taken. As the current Monarch of Saxony, Tonio the Diplomat, seemed very capable in all regards I then decided to engage myself in a gamble and to take as much land as I could from these evil elements. Hence Sudety, the goldprovince, Sumava and several other bohemian and austrian territories were aquired subsequently pushing Saxony´s Badboy over the limit.
This was all neatly kept in cheque as long as Tonio The Diplomat ruled. Alas, to my horror, this most prudent man soon died of old age and a new and one must say insane Imperator took his place. Tonio El Empotente was an incompetent, lumbering oaf, permanently drunk, full of weird and crazy ideas and with an attitude that made me shiver. He had ruled not 1 year when, understandably, all hell broke loose. The entire army of Saxony revolted. 150.000 men, 50.000 of which were cavalry, rebelled and laid waste to vast stretches of the corelands of Saxony. Also many provinces revolted as well and were hence under rebel scum - control. But that was not all. 1 month later Lorraine declared war on Saxony, then Mecklenburg and the Bohemia, Austria & Hungary. At this point I decided to go full minting in order to be able to combat all these hostile armies. As about 40 % of all saxonian lands were by now rebell controlled a state of emergency was declared and all funds went into raising a new army. It was touch and go. Especially the 50.000 sabres made things very difficult...as they rampaged their way through northern Germany. Still, slowly but surely, the rebels were driven back and the provinces retaken. The bohemian armies were actually an asset to this goal. As Sudety and the other newly aquired territories in the east were also under the control of the Rebs I just let the stupid Bohemians do the dirty job of besieging these provinces, for they would not revolt away once under bohemian control and this way I would be able to concentrate on the other revolting parts of Saxony. In this fashion I destroyed & hanged the Rebels and reconquered all the hotspots of Saxony. Once the revolution was crushed I then went on to defeat the Bohemians & Austrians all over again. As I feared another Civil War due to the dangerously high BB I then settled for a WP with these sinister fools.
Afterwards I diploannexed Munich, which I believe you, Tonio, had planned already (the relations were very good), rebuilt the army of Saxony to an even grander state as before, went + 2 offensive doctrine and +1 quality (event).
I also invested all funds into Landtech as I deemed it crucial that Saxony gain an edge in this area.
As it stands now Saxony is a very grand and mighty country already. I would propose a session spent at peace, reducing Badboy and building some refineries perhaps...

All in all : swell.

Rewards :

On time Cookie : - 3 BB please
AAR - Reward : - 1 Inflation please

 

[Tonioz]

Saxony 1455-1472 MT calculations:

1 + 1.5 + 0,5 * (131*20) / (143*17) = 2.5 + 0,5 * 1.07 = 3.0

 

[unmerged(30948)]

HELVETIA AAR (1455-1472)​

Age of Revolts

The session started with us at war vs the bishopric of Salzburg: the army was suddenly moved to siege that province, while the Salzburg army was sieging our province Schwyz. It happened that we were faster in our job and the effect was the annexion of Salzburg land to our realm.
In 1556 the decision of our King to fight the increasing corruption was badly accepted in italian lands that kept on asking more freedom in administration and so tried a secession. In the same year our fortresses in Salzburg, Roma and Pisa fell while rebels army moved to siege the city of Mantua.
In 1557 other cities rebelled to the central authority: Geneve, Briesgau, Mantua; the main army with our leader preferred staying on the monarch's side, so the rebels were destroyed and the cities turned back to Helvetians.
The courageous domestic policy done by our king in this period (free trade + innovativeness) produced so many contrasts: redress (1463), clergy (1464), nobles (1466), peasantry (1470). Our monarch Adam didn't fear such reactions; later he appointed as personal advisor a foreign instructor that improved our skills (quality + offensive).
All those changes and struggles forced the investments to rebuild cities, industries and internal trade; so our tech research didn't make big progress in this period.
In foreign policy we could see wide areas of Portugal in rebels' hands during its war vs Spain; some help was offered by friendly nations (Scotland, Brabant), but with big surprise Brabant attacked Portugal later to gain its french provs. In the south the King of Naples tried to take an egemony in Mediterranean Sea, fighting the decreasing powers Genoa and Venice on lands and on seas. Both Brabant and Saxony showed an aggressive behaviour in central Europe (like as Albania in Balcans), gaining territories after territories. They reached our borders and the future doesn't seem so safe ...
We desire the return of great King of Portugal after this weak regency, we want to confirm our good relationships with him (and with King of Naples too) to make more stability in southern France and northern Spain. We confirm here that we haven't interest about an expansion in south Italy, France or Spain.

*deflation as reward for being in time
*badboy reduction as AAR reward


MT calculation formula:
1 + 3*0.5 + 0.5 * (20*18)/(101*17)
= 1 + 1.5 + 0.10
= 2.60

 

[unmerged(6147)]

MT Calculation: 1+(2.1*0.5)+.5*(29673*20)/(47000*17)=2.4

This is starting to get a tad complicated, took some time to calculate it, if you come up with a new formula if this doesnt work or for some other reason, please keep it more simply or I shall bug Daniel with a lot of questions.
[/CENTER]

Absolut. The calculation is not complicated. It uses these features
- addition
- multiplication
- parenthesis

but it is perhaps a tad bit long, which is something entirely different.

Please remake the calculation and use 1.5 for inheritance. We use a fixed value for that the first session. See post 521 for more info about that.

 

[Cicero]

AAR Brabant 1455-1472

The session began peacefully. I bribed some vassalls, diploannexd Strassbourg and Lorraine and saved cash the rest of the time.

But when internal troubles in Portugal grew stronger and stronger i decided to be an opportunistic arse and dowed my portugese neighbours. I was quite unhappy that Portugal rushed that deep into my territory, now it was time to strike back and incorporate these portugese outposts into my realm. Maine, Anjou and the provinces south of Anjou (i forgot the name) were my demands, but Portugal rejected and chose to fight.
After the first provinces fell into my hands Portugal quickly finished its war with Castile and sent an army to our border. Some fights happened, in which i wasnt very lucky and lost most of them, although i had bigger army and much more Cavalry. But Portugese seemed to have uber leaders or some kind of unknown magic potion that provides super morale. The fights lasted a while and a stalemate was achieved. But whereas Brabant was able to reinforce its army properly Portugal had problems rebuilding the lost units and handling its revolting provinces at the same time; at this point Brabant had a WE of 1, Port 11. Portugal realized that it would lose the war in the long run. Since Anjou revolted and left the portugese empire in the meantime i just demanded 2 provinces: Maine and the province south of it. Additionally i offered 200d as compensation, im a reasonable guy . Port agreed finally and now the map looks much nicer (except for Anjou which was annexed by Port again and now is a green blob surrounded by brabantian territory).

For the rest of session not much happened: recovered stab, traded and grabbed last english continental prov. Poor english only have their capital province left now.

2 things that didnt went well this session:
- the row of bad events continues. i hardly invest in tech because i need to invest in stab nearly all the time, bad events wont let me reach positive stab. Additionally numerous events push my dp into the wrong directions, it seems like the event engine likes decentralized, but i dont.
- the Brittany-France-Holland war lasts for ever and will most probably not be solved without a dow from my side. so it looks like i have to attack my vassalll Brittany and lose 6 stab for that dow. Otherwise this war will never end and i will never be able to annex my vassalls Brittany and Holland. its a really stupid situation.

one curiosity: i examined the stats and saw that all human players know 3 american provinces, except for Barbant: i know 4 american provs. so i watched the save and discovered that i have knowledge of the incan capital province . also inca is trading in brabant cot. i dont think that will give me any advantage but at least its funny.

AAR reward: bb reduction
on time reward: bb reduction

MT: 1+1.5+0.5(48.5*20)/(82.4*17)= 2.85 ~ 2.9

 

[Aladar]

AAR Albania 1455 - 1472​

Quite a borring session for Albania, mainly due to our high BB and continuesly stabhits which keept us at -3 and unable to attack anyone. Despite being over the BB limit no AI nation decided to dow us

Karaman twice declined and broke vassalization so a few wars to regain them as vassels where fought, but besides that it was a very doll session. Frulli defected to us from Venice which must have been the highlight of the session, besides taking Alexandria right before Naples wanted to

Bob The Mediocre II took over the rule, which didn't do any wonders for our BB, which is only declining at a slow rate.

No new techs were reached but Trade 3 is withing our grasp and will help us actually make an income from merchants, which we currently don't. Having 2 CoTs will make it a fair income once monopolys have been achived.

AAR-reward: BB-reduction
On time cookie: Deflation

MT: (1 + 1,71) + (½ x (38 x 20) / (91 x 17)) = 2,96

 

[FJ!]

AAR Skåne 1472-1500
​

Being on time reward: 3 BB reduction.

MT Calculation: definitely lower than 2.5. 2.5
REQUEST FOR LEADERS: 2 generals + 1 admiral + 1 explorer

 

[unmerged(49182)]

AAR Scotland 1472-1500​

Mallorca gets a new official language and I am being generally cool​

Noone touches me with impunity​

We had long been annoyed by the English and their arrogant ways, so we, the humble Scots, decided to make them humble Scots, and attacked them. Soon, they were incorporated in the Scottish Commonwealth. At the same time, our expeditionary force in Portugal were involved in several fights with peasants demanding freedom and we sent more and more soldiers there. After a few years, a formal alliance between Scotland and Portugal was signed, and we helped them in their wars, with great success.

While we were fighting in Iberia and France, we had saved up a small fortune and we decided to build the first refinery in Europe, and about 2 years later, it was finished in Berwick. Scotland can now proudly boast with the fact that we produce the best whisky in the world.

Now we had won great victories in Iberia and France and we decided our fleet to send 50 galleys there, so that we could take the Balears, and so we did with ease, although the fort held out longer than the others in Aragon did.
We had also occupied almost every Castillian province, except Extramadura and Castilla, so we were frequently offered provinces in order to peace them, but we refused. After a while, the peace offers stopped, and it later turned out that the king of Castille had gone mad and noone had been able to send any offers, but the king was killed by his advisors and a new one was crowned. The offers now started again, and after some time, Portugal accepted peace, we had now gained Viscaya and Navarra. Before that, we had aquired Valencia and The Balears from Aragon, which we intend to keep. Viscaya and Navarra has already been given back to Portugal.

After the Iberian wars had ended, we were at peace a few years, and expanded our whisky production by building two new refineries. The people were growing unhappy due to the peace, so we attacked Connacht and Leinster, and quickly defeated them. They are now our vassals and will hopefully stay that way.

-------------------

AAR Reward: BB Reduction
Being On Time Reward: BB Reduction

MT Calculation: 1+(1.25)+.5*(1020)/(2044)=2.5
​

I would like an explorer instead of an admiral next session.​

 

[King John]

AAR Portugal 1472-1500

The kingdom was in utter ruins. Three loans, Badboy 8 points over the limit, rebels everywhere, an underpowered army, and only 13 ducats in the treasury. Not to mention, no leaders worth speaking of. It was worse than any time Portugal had ever experienced, but the man with the plan was back.

The loans had to be taken care of first of all. There was no money of my own to deal with it; minting wasn't worth it. The only way was to borrow money, so I went to the richest country in Europe, Saxony, and asked their king for a 500D loan. For 2.5 percent yearly interest he accepted, and thus the poverty of Portugal began to lift.

To deal with the Badboy, the first goal was to get above 0 stab. This was quite reachable, since I was already at 0 stab and had most of the investment for the next level done already. So I invested until I got to 1 stab. But then I got a political crisis. The only way to stave off another civil war was to remain at war with other countries.

But with no hope of raising reasonable war funds with my raped RR torn income, the only way was to loot. I made use of every looted prov, minting the month after and collecting modest sums to finish paying off loans and eventually to raise troops.

Had it not been for the efforts of my Scottish friends, the Portuguese kingdom would be in dire shape. Their armies defeated many rebel forces and helped with seiges, giving me some breathing room to operate against other countries.

At first I didn't want to raise troops, because I thought WE would go down eventually if I didn't raise any. I guess I don't understand quite how that works though, because after 3 years it hadn't gone down. So then I started building troops again.

Castille DOW'd, Cordoba DOW'd, Toulouse DOW'd, and Aragon DOW'd, and Genoa and Provence were also dragged into the wars. What ensued was a long struggle, aided by the great Scottish army, in which all enemies of Portugal were eventually defeated. Castille was looted for years, as was Toulouse and Aragon. Grenada rebelled at one point, but was also beaten down.

We then waited for all these countries to build up adequate funds to give a decent compensation for their war crimes. Between Portugal and Scotland, about 1500D was gained in tribute at the end, which doesn't take into account all the loot.

But we didn't wait so long to peace them for the money alone. We had to keep them all at war until we eventually peaced them all at once, otherwise as soon as one's truce timed out, that country would redow, which would keep us(or at least me) at war forever. So we didn't peace any of them until all were under control.

During the war, infra 4 was achieved. And after the war ended, tax collectors were raised in all the Iberian provs(almost all of them conquered from Castille in the previous war hadn't yet had TCs placed). Navarre, Valencia and the Baleares were taken also. I built a Fine Arts academy, then saved up to build three Refineries. The industrious citizens of Armagnac managed to build a Goods manu of their own also, so finally Portuguese industry is taking off. Soon we shall have infra 5...

Badboy has also made a marked improvement. My good monarch lowered it from 49 to 33 all by himself.


Rewards. -1 inflation and -1 inflation

MT: It'd be lower than 2.5

 

[unmerged(6147)]

AAR MOLDAVIA 1472 - 1500

A basic problem for Moldavia all since the start has been that we are not alliance leader. Once we succeded in becoming it but shortly afterwards LIV DOWed when we had high WE and we had to reject joining the war and when we later on did join it we were not leader anymore.

Now tests in SP revealed that if we DOWed Qara Qoyunlu both POL and Lithania would reject and thus we could rebuild the alliance with us as leaders. Said and done... ooops Poland did reject but not the alliance leader Lithuania. Well the war proceeded well and we were just a few months away (only one province not yet under siege) from a 100% victory when the damned Lithuanians peaced with Qara I wthdrew my men and then immediately broke truce for a cost of 5 stab (although I was only at 0 stab at that moment IIRC). The reason I needed to do it now was that Qara had a 37k army still in their last province, an army I needed my shock 5 leader to kill efficiently and that leader would die in a few years. Well this war went more swiftly than the previous one and we were able to ask for the COT in Bagdad and MA.

Else, our income from trade increased nicely during the session but numbers can be deceptful. Moldavia earned 1752 the last year while Saxony only earned 1518. So Moldavia is the richer? Nah, far from it. To show you why I present this little table:

                                   Saxony   Moldavia

Income                             1518     1782

Income after inflation adjustment  1437     1464       
Research income from manus          480        0
                                  -----     -----
                                   1917     1464

These numbers speak for themselves.

We mostly invested in infra4 but POR is still the leader in that department. My guess is that POR has so far not spent one ducat on LT while Saxony definitely has that since they are at LT5. Together with Helvetia. Talking about Helvetia. Elio has a BB of 78. One of the more common message boxes I got was "Nation X cancelled the vassalisation with Helvetia" and almost as common was "Helvetia annexed x" definitely rarer was "Nation X became the vassals of Helvetia". It seemed Helvetia got tired of all those broken vassalisations (which occurs due to high BB) and CWs (they got at least one more this session) that they gave up the strife for keeping BB in control.

We have gotten our own BB down to 15. But the speed by which BB decreases gets lower and lower since our monarchs gets worse and worse. We are now down to 777-monarchs.


REWARDS

Deflation.


MT

Moldavia controls all of her MP-providing provinces. Thus:

1 + 1.3 + (29*20) / (94*28) =
2.3 + 580/2632 =
2.3 + 0.22 = 2,52


REQUEST FOR LEADERS

3 generals and one conquistador.