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[Morfeo]

AAR: Sardegna-Piemonte

We spent the first years of our reign to consolidate the victory against the ottoman heathen - even going so far as to send two armies far into azerbadjanian lands to finally convince the sultan that it was in his interest to return all south slavic lands to our friends in Serbia. For extra protection, we also agreed to take control over north and central Greece, thus making our possessions in the Balkans much bigger and more peaceful than ever.

We then finished integrating Naples, and helped France in their conflict against the british which incidentally was allied to our archenemies in Florence. For that help, we secured our borders with Umbria. After this, we had to wait out the threat of a coalition war, before helping Serbia once again by regaining control over the two remaining Bosnian provinces, which was annexed to Serbia at 98% integration.

Venice, seeing how much peace we had given our south slavic friends, wanted in on the fun, and asked us to help them, first by retaking southern Tirolia, and then by getting back at the decadent ambrosian rulers in Milan, by regaining Verona, Treviso and the city of Venice itself.

At the end, we felt in a better position than ever, and could see peace in sight for italy and the central Mediterranean - even getting close to some connected land-masses for less trouble. Right now, we are helping our bavarian friends in a loosing effort - but we will then as soon as that conflict ends, once again set our sight on returning the peace to central Italy and finally connecting our northern and southern italian possessions.

Provinces gained: Umbria, Epirus, Athens, Naxos, Kastoria, Thessaly, Corfu,
Provinces gained for vassals: Euboea, Trent, Treviso, Verona, Venezia (for Venice). Visoki, Donji Kraji, Nis, Kosovo, Serbia, Skopje (for Serbia).
Vassals integrated: Serbia, Naples

 

[Spirited]

What time are we going for today?

 

[Deleted member 125677]

I wouldn't mind starting at 21 again. Morfeo is usually the bottle neck though, so it's up to him

 

[Uzzy]

Sooner we start the sooner glorious Brandenburg becomes even more glorious Prussia. So I'm down.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Server ID: 90098408471669765

 

[Deleted member 125677]

90098409143735305

 

[Deleted member 125677]

1649-1673

 

[Kabouter]

If you guys keep going until (almost) the end, one of you guys (presumably Robo) will probably have the largest empire of anyone in any of these games.

 

[Spirited]

If you guys keep going until (almost) the end, one of you guys (presumably Robo) will probably have the largest empire of anyone in any of these games.

Robo is so much bigger than me it's not even fun

Sardinia and dai viet is about the same size and I'm about in the middle between Robo and dai viets.

 

[Uzzy]

THIS IS PRUSSIA: AAR

So pretty. And I even have the right waifu, finally.

Starting today's session, I knew that the Teutons remaining provinces amounted to 92% warscore, meaning that they could be fully annexed. At which point, I'd be able to form Prussia myself. So I sat around waiting two years for my truce timer to run out with them, releasing Krakow as a vassal, just to avoid spending 434 paper mana. I had a bit of a concern when the Teutons allied the Ottomans, but in the end they didn't even bother defending such an unholy alliance. They did, however, have Austria and Pomerania as allies, who lept to their deaths in defence of such terrible evil as the Teutons, the stealer of waifus.

As usual, I smashed the Teutons and quickly occupied their last six provinces, taking the fort at Konigsburg. The Pomeranians did some damage against my stupid vassals, but didn't put up more than a token resistance when my forces marched over. Austria came over once and got sent packing, then ended up embroiled in a war with Bohemia, who presumably smelt an easy kill. Unfortunately, Bohemia forgot to bring allies to the party, while Austria brought half of southern Europe. So I was treat to the delightful sight of the Austrians smashing Bohemia, and eventually punching Silesia and OPM Poland out of the false Emperor.

Eventually I white peaced out with Austria, then fully annexed the last few Teuton provinces. After coring Konigsburg, I finally saw the decision I had been waiting two hundred years for, and formed the Kingdom of Prussia.

While waiting for my cores to finish, the newly freed OPM Poland took two provinces from their Silesian neighbour, leaving them as an OPM. I checked Silesia's alliances and discovered, to my delight, that only Bohemia was allied to them. And wouldn't be a co-belligerent. So I could conquer Silesia, humiliate the Bohemians and break the Bohemian alliance with the SLC all in one stroke. I declared on Silesia, brought the SLC in and just destroyed the poor Bohemians. Speaking of the SLC, Sweden fell into a republic at some point, and managed to retain the personal union with Lithuania. So that's different.

I rounded off the rest of the night with two wars against Galicia-Volhynia, eventually vassalising them, another war against Hungary where I took two provinces, and fully annexed Poland to make sure that my name looked right on the map. That's very important, as I'm sure you'll all agree.

Hungary's been left very broken thanks to another war with Austria, so there'll be some more easy expansion into there.. leaving three player nations looking at one another in the Balkans. Nothing bad can come of this.

Provinces Gained: Kalisz, Glogau, Ratibor, Belz, Peremyshl, Spis, Wizna, Osterode, Warmia, Ortelsburg, Konigsberg, Poznan, Breslau
Provinces Gained for Vassals: Moldovia (for Galicia-Volhynia)
Vassals Gained: Galicia-Volhynia
Vassals Annexed: Krakow

Also, an Imperial Election update, the voters preferences are very erratic. I go from having 5 electors onside to 2, then back up to 4, then down to 2, then back to 5. Silly AI should know that I'm the only real Emperor around.

 

[Red Arremer]

I've decided to do the Sultan of Rum/Unify Islam/Master of India triple blowout achievement (and if I can knock out something else like silk road, all the better).
It's 1492 and I already broke the Mamluks and QQ (while the Timurids broke themselves) and out-boat Venice. I've also been allied to France since forever. I feel no shame.

Luckily the Burgundian inheritance fired really early so Austria didn't get much off of Burgundy, though they got a PU over Hungary within the first 20 years, which is disgusting.

 

[CloudWolf]

Japan is out of control.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Time to go on a pilgrimage

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Mamluks AAR
The session was off to a really slow start, mostly because I spent the first 12 years or so in a Regency Council. But Persia finally integrated, and later on Karaman. When the Regency Council ended, I moved against Sind, Afghanistan and another OPM in the east, and set up a nice East Indian Trading Company. I also started a war against Mutapa for dat gold, and colonized a bit in South Africa.

Then I started a war against Holland, France and Hansa. This was because Holland had two ongoing colonization projects on Madagascar which was unpleasing to my eyes, and because seizing colonies > annexing. Hilariousness ensued when France sailed around Africa, and landed a 35K stack in Oman - only to be promptly stack-wiped. Hansa was of course deeply moved and inspired by this heroic action and martyrdom, and sent a 2K stack the same way right before we ended. I think, sometimes, the AI would be better off if it actually had to deal with naval attrition.

And I finally overtook Ming in points!

 

[Deleted member 125677]

ID: 90098470449794049

 

[Spirited]

Today I just want to take some time and thank Roboleon for the commendable effort he put into a war he really had nothing to win from, Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 125677]

1673 - 1692

 

[Uzzy]

The Search for Imperial Authority - Prussia AAR:

I started today's session involved in the SLC's war with Russia. Knowing I had a truce with my neighbours, I figured I'd help out and smashed Theodoro, one of Russia's allies. Unfortunately, this meant I took my eye off the ball when it came to Hungary.

I had a truce with Hungary that expired one month after Sardinia-Piedmont's truce. When it expired, my troops were out of position, letting the Sardinians in. So they were able to take Hungary and vassalise them, taking that avenue of expansion out. This forced me to ally with Transylvania before the Sardinians took them out too, but luckily the Transylvanians were up for becoming my vassal.

As I looked around for something to attack, I noticed that Bohemia's ally Ravensburg had quite a few heretic princes as allies. So I declared on Bohemia, with Ravensburg as a co-belligerent, just to cleanse a few more heretics from the HRE. Bohemia was crushed in a ludicrously quick war, while those heretical OPMs with their level 7 forts put up just a token resistance. It's good to punch OPMs and have them throw out money and reparations. As for Bohemia, I ended up taking no land from them, as the AE would mess up the electoral vote and possible make me lose it and I wasn't about to let that happen again goddamn game trolling me constantly fuck you Wiz. Anyway, I just took some money, reparations, and forced Bohemia to give back some Saxon lands they stole. I'm so good.

I annexed my vassal Galicia-Volhynia as they weren't doing their job, and fabricated claims against the two Ottoman provinces left in Europe. With zero forces in Europe, they were an easy steal, simply a matter of letting the ticking war score tick up enough. During this war, I became the Emperor again, and this time my king didn't die the next month. So that's good.

I added all my provinces to the HRE for some quick and easy IA, but that only amounted to 36 Imperial Authority. Thankfully we aren't losing much a year, but it's going to be hard to even institute the Reichsregiment, let alone revoke the Privilege of Non-Appeal. Guess I'll have to go cleanse the entire HRE of heresy.

Oh, and tensions rose between Prussia and Sardinia-Piedmont over the Balkans, as I predicted! There's just not a lot of space left to expand into.

Provinces Gained: Bender, Bratslav, Moldova, Lwow, Halicz, Podole
Vassals Gained: Transylvania
Vassals Annexed: Galicia-Volhynia
Imperial Crown: Shiny

 

[iceblade997]

I have a spare Wealth of Nations key from a Humble Store sale that I can't use (already have a copy) so figure that someone here may be able to better make use of it. First to PM can grab it.

 

[Kabouter]

Oh, and tensions rose between Prussia and Sardinia-Piedmont over the Balkans, as I predicted! There's just not a lot of space left to expand into.

Aside from the rest of Germany, the Benelux, France, Britain, Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic states, Belarus, most of Ukraine and Western Russia you mean?

 

[Spirited]

Aside from the rest of Germany, the Benelux, France, Britain, Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic states, Belarus, most of Ukraine and Western Russia you mean?

What he really means is that he wants some PvP as the game so far has been PvE blobbing Sim.

I do love me some PvE blobbing Sim.
It makes for a relaxing night where I can be annoying in the in-game chat while listening to Kent on the highest volume and reading shitty GAF posts.

 

[Kabouter]

What he really means is that he wants some PvP as the game so far has been PvE blobbing Sim.

Well, that's completely different
But I suppose it's not un-German to make up nonsense excuses to just embark on wars of conquest.

 

[Uzzy]

Aside from the rest of Germany, the Benelux, France, Britain, Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic states, Belarus, most of Ukraine and Western Russia you mean?

Well yes, apart from that. That said, the only realistic option is France. Germany and the Benelux are still part of the Empire, and I do kinda want to stay as the Emperor and keep those nice bonuses. Sweden and Lithuania are in a personal union, which makes them hella scary. Turning on them would just give Japan an opening to drive closer to Europe too. As for Britain, they're an option when my Prussian Space Marines learn to swim.

But hey, the Imperialism CB is close, so I might go and punch le blob a few times.

 

[Spirited]

Well yes, apart from that. That said, the only realistic option is France. Germany and the Benelux are still part of the Empire, and I do kinda want to stay as the Emperor and keep those nice bonuses. Sweden and Lithuania are in a personal union, which makes them hella scary. Turning on them would just give Japan an opening to drive closer to Europe too. As for Britain, they're an option when my Prussian Space Marines learn to swim.

But hey, the Imperialism CB is close, so I might go and punch le blob a few times.

If I were you I would turn on that bitchy Sweden, remember all the wars he lost you

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Mamluks AAR
I began by offering a generous white peace to Holland since I had already seized the two colonies I was after, then I finished the war against Mutapa by grabbing their 4 (!) zimbabwean gold mines plus feeding Marehan a bit. Then I went against the rich Delhi provinces, in a war that also involved the Bahmanis, before I took the stuff north of them to make a nice and clean border with my ally. I also grabbed an indian opm squeezed between Malwa and Delhi. Adm points are really the bottle neck in my Indian expansions, such richness much coring cost. And protectorates suck. Should have grabbed adm ideas @18, but instead I opted for Quality, since it'll give me an additonal total +10 discipline if I take the eco/quality policy. I think I could end up with 125% discipline with right advisor in the end game, lmao. Who needs cheap coring when you can bbq your enemies.

Today I just want to take some time and thank Roboleon for the commendable effort he put into a war he really had nothing to win from, Thanks!

No problem I just sped up your sieges basically, I don't think I was even involved in any big battles. Was heading for one but you won right before I reached it

 

[Uzzy]

If I were you I would turn on that bitchy Sweden, remember all the wars he lost you

This is true. Lithuania took Moscow in their last war too.

Hmm.

Well, that's completely different
But I suppose it's not un-German to make up nonsense excuses to just embark on wars of conquest.

I conquered Poland to make sure my name appeared on the map right. There's no nobler a reason for wars of conquest!

 

[Kabouter]

I conquered Poland to make sure my name appeared on the map right. There's no nobler a reason for wars of conquest!

Ahahahah
The amount of people who fight wars in Paradox games just for how their name on the map or their border looks is ridiculous. I remember playing MP with TDM and half his wars being about that, and him hating on my stupid amounts of border gore.

 

[Spirited]

Ahahahah
The amount of people who fight wars in Paradox games just for how their name on the map or their border looks is ridiculous. I remember playing MP with TDM and half his wars being about that, and him hating on my stupid amounts of border gore.

I still fondly remember when my western part of Japan was looking like a spider with all that border gore, good times.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

I remember when Morfeo's country looked like an abstract painting by violent diarrhea

 

[Spirited]

I remember when Morfeo's country looked like an abstract painting by violent diarrhea

Sprinkled all over souther Europe, that was a fun sight.
I would go mad over having to think about protecting all provinces in potential wars.

 

[Kabouter]

Sprinkled all over souther Europe, that was a fun sight.
I would go mad over having to think about protecting all provinces in potential wars.

As someone who has observed a fair few sessions, I can pretty much tell you that Morfeo just simply doesn't

 

[Morfeo]

About this violent diarrhea.

First, when you are bordering a pissed off Red Arremer, and start out way weaker than almost everybody else, are surrounded by the HRE that gives you crazy AE and sparks a coalition for no reason AND have only limited knowledge of the technicalities of the game, you have to be pragmatic and expand where you can.

Second, spreading out your possessions makes it harder to defend all of them, but it also makes it way harder for enemies to gain decisive victories over you, which means it can actually work as a decent defensive strategy.

But yeah, in singleplayer, I usually roleplay much more, and would probably have kept my possessions more close to Italy to keep my borders clean and nice.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Violent Diarrhea Apologist

 

[Mgoblue201]

Ahahahah
The amount of people who fight wars in Paradox games just for how their name on the map or their border looks is ridiculous. I remember playing MP with TDM and half his wars being about that, and him hating on my stupid amounts of border gore.

The person with the biggest name wins. That's how it works, right?

 

[Spirited]

The person with the biggest name wins. That's how it works, right?

I've already won this.

 

[Uzzy]

About this violent diarrhea.

First, when you are bordering a pissed off Red Arremer, and start out way weaker than almost everybody else, are surrounded by the HRE that gives you crazy AE and sparks a coalition for no reason AND have only limited knowledge of the technicalities of the game, you have to be pragmatic and expand where you can.

Second, spreading out your possessions makes it harder to defend all of them, but it also makes it way harder for enemies to gain decisive victories over you, which means it can actually work as a decent defensive strategy.

But yeah, in singleplayer, I usually roleplay much more, and would probably have kept my possessions more close to Italy to keep my borders clean and nice.

Expanding where you can is always a smart idea. It's been easier in Italy now as you get the Shadow Kingdom event, which allows you to actually conquer northern Italy, but you are really squashed in down there. France to the West, the HRE to the North and the Ottoman/Mamluks to the East, which is probably the easiest expansion route, though the Balkan lands are mostly worthless.

A tall Italy is a delight though. Just a shame that development is far worse than conquest for the most part.

 

[Spirited]

Just a shame that development is far worse than conquest for the most part.

Tell Korea that, they've been building tall the whole game(before I started conquering them they had 300 development with starting provinces).
Their goddamn capital has more development than Beijing, 16 goddamn Base tax.

They almost feel like a giant smorgasbord up for the taking.

 

[CloudWolf]

So, Spirited will play a one province Free City in the HRE next game, right?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Conquest is more efficient as a method for growth, but that's not really problematic imo. What does annoy me somewhat is that development is basically not happening on any meaningful scale if you are growing by conquest. Germany ends up being stupidly highly developed but if it gets conquered by a large power it will wind up stagnating to an extreme degree.

Its fine for balance purposes but does annoy me from an, idk, realism perspective maybe? It's the price you pay for not modelling population growth and industry I guess.

 

[Kabouter]

Wiz should build a time machine so he can get good data on POPs for EU5

 

[Mgoblue201]

Are we going to end the current game before Christmas?

 

[Spirited]

Are we going to end the current game before Christmas?

I guess?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say most people won't play eu4 over christmas and after that in january/february we might get a bigger amount of people in on a new game with the new DLC.

 

[Uzzy]

Are we going to end the current game before Christmas?

So, Wednesday 23rd for the final session? I wouldn't mind playing this campaign in the new year, but it does make sense to start afresh.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

So, Wednesday 23rd for the final session? I wouldn't mind playing this campaign in the new year, but it does make sense to start afresh.

I'm leaving for the Holidays on the 22nd, so Sunday would be the last session, at least for me!

I think we should start over after the Holidays to get more people in, everyone is playing in super easy mode now anyway and we will probably reach like ~1750 or so on Sunday if we get two decent sessions.

Speaking of which, should we try to begin @21 tonight? (Morfeo?)

But ofc, if everyone is motivated and feel they have things left to achieve, we could do a couple of sessions in early january while we wait for the new round to begin and see the game out till the sweet end.

 

[Morfeo]

21.30 is best for me today. I also suggest we start a new round after xmas. So I suggest we start ranking etc to be ready to start pretty quickly after new year.

 

[Kabouter]

21.30 is best for me today. I also suggest we start a new round after xmas. So I suggest we start ranking etc to be ready to start pretty quickly after new year.

Plenty of time to do that after the game is up surely, it doesn't exactly take forever. Just need Robo or someone else to determine who votes and who is voted on and then have the voters PM me the ratings here on GAF.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

1692 - 1708

 

[Uzzy]

Prussia AAR:

Komm, süßer Tod, komm selge Ruh

Should have taken a pic of the diplomatic map mode during that war. But hey, war with the entire world. Good stuff.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

you should probably have used your claim on my province instead of heroically defending an AI, Uzzy. But well played! Prussian troops should be banned from the game

 

[Morfeo]

Italy AAR: Its Prussia against the world

So, the last few sessions, we have expanded the Eternal Peace™ in and around our home peninsula, annexing Rome and Tuscany, integrating Venice, taking vast territories from Milan, gaining Styria and Provence as vassals, cleaning up the ottoman and Hungarian possessions in the Balkans, and forming the Italian Empire of Eternal Peace™.. We then started last round by quickly going into the last Hungarian stronghold in the Carpathians, who invited us in for protection against the newly reborn expansionist Prussia with crazy troops. Prussian ambitions on the Balkans was however not stopped by that, and they instead took imperial control of the Holy Roman Empire, vassalized the poor Hungarian subjects of Count Dracula in Transylvania, and stationed around 96k troops north of the Danubian delta on our far eastern border. When Prussia also organized a huge German coalition against us peaceful southerners, and openly spoke about their imperialistic ambitions and wanting a place in the sun, the situation went from bad to dire for the newly formed Italian Empire.

We therefore had to set in motion our own diplomatic counter-offensive against the aggressive threat, and made a deal with our sunni brothers, the Sultan of Egypt and Levant, Rajah of India, Shah of Persia, Imperator of Rum and Abyssinia, Kalifa and Protector of Jerusalem and the holy cities of Mekkah and Medina, to stand with us in our on-going struggles for Peace in our Time™.

The result was satisfactory, and by some generous lending of troops to fight the barbarians of the Ming dynasty in Cathay, the Sultan was also able to have the war-mongering Shogun of the Land of the Rising Sun to join in on an eventual conflict. Things took a turn when Prussia itself sent an unexpected diplomatic offer, and instead proposed a mutual struggle to rid Europe of infidels. We decided that by going on with this plan, we should be able to be in the perfect situation for an eventual strike, as the proposed plan would get the German coalition out of the way.

Thus this round started by a huge player versus player war. Me, France, Portugal, their colonies, Bavaria and Switzerland and my vassals - against Prussia and the german coalition. However, as planned, the war lasted only a month, before a white peace was signed, effectively ending the threat of the coalition.

We then spent time restoring Barcelona and Murcia to our aragonese brothers, annexing Savona and the city of the maestro himself Pirlo, Brescia, and mostly relaxing in peace.

Before the Sultan striked against Prussian allies the Swedish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Prussia quickly joined, and we had another war - but they were probably unprepared for our diplomatic reorientations - and thus found himself fighting a player-driven alliance of the Mameluke Sultanate, the Empire of the Rising Sun, and the Italian Empire of Eternal Peace™. And although their troops fought bravely and also went deep behind our underdefended Balkan fortresses in the start, they eventually fought a loosing war, province for province, fortress for fortress, even though they also managed to win quite a few battles with their small but incredible army, and good tactical skills on the battlefield itself - seemingly especially routing our eastern friends from Japan.

As the war was defensive, we had no plan of crushing Prussia completely, and accepted a peace involving small strips of land to all parties involved along the border - with us effectively blocking his Transylvanian possession inside our own. 100k brave Italians (or maybe less brave Balkaners) had to die to secure that border and peace - but hopefully it was enough to teach the Germans a lesson to modify their ambitions and give up the land in the south and west ofthe Holy Roman Empire to the peace.

Provinces gained: Savona, Brescia
Provinces gained for vassals: Barcelona, Murcia, Maros, Spis
Friends gained: Mameluks, Japanese