Just a heads up that I completely forgot I have a company Christmas party to attend tomorrow so I won't be at the next session. Which means John Dunbar better starts sucking up to me in the hope that AI Mamluks doesn't backstap our alliance and eats all your lands. I hope the AI doesn't do anything stupid but I suspect any of the following will happen if not all:
Joins the coalition against Venice and declare wars on them.
Decides Kilwa shouldn't exist and declares war.
Becomes the defender of faith and declares a holy war on Qara and depletes all my manpower/money.
After beating Venice declares war on Portugal and Spain.
Apropos of nothing, I think we should cancel tomorrow's session.
But seriously, it sounds bad for me, but it might not be. I think my AE with the Mamluks is close to ticking below 50, since it has not gone up very much in a long time as I have not been attacking any Muslim countries. If the AI breaks the alliance with me, the truce will almost certainly be enough to make it impossible for them to join the coalition. I think Kilwa and Qara are in more danger there.
Spain also isn't that upset with me, and one of their big things was that I was allied to their rival the Mamluks. With luck, they will leave the coalition rather than get into a war. It's obviously a precarious situation, but if I play my cards right I might be able to get out of the mess without the coalition ever firing. Meanwhile I will ally everyone I can in Europe to make me seem as untempting a target as possible.
Or it might go horrendously and the Mamluks and Spain will declare separate wars on me and my dreams of Italy will be in ruins.
Oh shit, AI Kira will fuck us up if we're not careful. It's like AI Uzzy, but ten times more dangerous.
I think we should actually be fine with the coalition though John Dunbar , as discussed we can get a couple of countries to back down with separate truces and some advanced diplo might keep AI Mamluks out. I'd be more afraid of AI Mamluks deciding to declare war just 'cause.
I think we should actually be fine with the coalition though John Dunbar , as discussed we can get a couple of countries to back down with separate truces and some advanced diplo might keep AI Mamluks out. I'd be more afraid of AI Mamluks deciding to declare war just 'cause.
Yeah, we should be able to whittle down the coalition a bit if you declare on Hungary before unpausing so not to take any risks. My armies are pretty close so I should be able to siege them out pretty quick. Might want to keep the war going though, just to keep Savoy in it.
I'm also not that worried about the Mamluks in a separate war. I have been keeping my navy stronger than theirs, and I'll pump out some more galleys just to be safe. They should not be able to cross the Bosporus. And again, there will be a truce if they break their alliance with me, and they have no claims on my lands, so if there is a war it's not going to come soon. AI access is of course a complete mystery to me, so if they can go around the Black Sea then we are boned.
With Savoy and Hungary out of the picture, the coalition is just Milan and Spain. Milan hates me and might go to war just to spite me, but Spain is close to being friendly. If I can get them to leave the coalition we're golden.
I won't be playing tonight, dinner out with my sister's family. I am allied with Savoy, Bavaria, Saxony and England, so the AI might be dragged into a war.
I won't be playing tonight, dinner out with my sister's family. I am allied with Savoy, Bavaria, Saxony and England, so the AI might be dragged into a war.
In my experience that's highly untrustworthy though. I have seen people on Reddit claim that 80+ trust means the AI won't break your alliance, but I had 100 trust countries break alliances because of the 'Desires your land' modifiers.
Yes, it has basically all the Antilles, and AI sent Sunni Moroccans to make some colonies, particularly. Moroccans colonies in Cuba. And, in the middle of the dark green blot, there is a single pink province which is Reformed Dutch.
Yes, it has basically all the Antilles, and AI sent Sunni Moroccans to make some colonies, particularly. Moroccans colonies in Cuba. And, in the middle of the dark green blot, there is a single pink province which is Reformed Dutch.
In my experience that's highly untrustworthy though. I have seen people on Reddit claim that 80+ trust means the AI won't break your alliance, but I had 100 trust countries break alliances because of the 'Desires your land' modifiers.
First of all, I wanted to return some cores to my vassal Dali so I could annex them afterwards. Called in Khmer who gracefully accepted the call:
With baby Ming being a champ again!
But playing EU4 while somehwat drunk is never a good plan (Whispers get very confusing). Which is why I ended up giving some cores to Ming, and not taking some at all:
Oh well. Whatever bordergore, I'll straighten you out someday.
Also, as you can see I used the mapmods Kira recommended. Looks good, except when you're dealing with some monsoons.
Eeeew!
Anyway, fun stuff! Lausebub made good on a promise he made a week back, declaring on Delhi (Jaunpur), kicking their ass and canceling all their alliances. I might just royal marry that beautiful green soab after this is all done! So I declared war against Delhi (Jaunpur) like one minute before the end of the session. Let's hope I can take them and regain my rightful clay!
And lastlay John Dunbar and KiraFA37 , don't take the rivaly personally, I really didn't have anyone else to rival. And you'll probably eclipse me soon, so free PP!
This session could have been a disaster due to a temporary change of regime in the Mamluk empire, but instead it turned out to be one lucky break after another.
As planned, I gained a few allies in Europe to make the third coalition against Venice think twice before going to war, and then Moldavia declared war on Hungary. This dragged their coalition partner Savoy into the war, which surely gave rest of the coalition something to think about. Hungary was quickly overrun and Moldavia got plenty of land for them and their vassal Transylvania. They then went on to form the nation of Romania.
Then I noticed I had disloyal subjects, which seemed odd considering I didn't have any subjects. Then I noticed that Bohemia, the country I had just allied for a lark not ten minutes ago, was my Junior Partner in a Personal Union. And it is a damn strong Bohemia, bolstered by some Austrian and Polish lands:
Pretty much instantly after this little boon the entire coalition against me collapsed, one member after another leaving with their tails tucked between their legs. The Mamluks also stayed my allies throughout the session, so a new threat beyond the Bosporus did not materialize.
I also decided to vassalize the Knights and Austria: The Knights because their only ally is France, and I decided to add to my Mediterrean Island collection simply by annexing them later on rather than bothering with a war. I also made the OPM Austria my vassal in a brief war against Lübeck's trade league for those sweet cores. Next time I will be feeding Saxony's holdings to them.
At the end of the session there was another bit of luck. Ravensburg conquered Milan, which was annoying as I needed that province dearly and getting it through force of arms is always a major aggressive expansion hit. But instead of keeping it, Ravensburg sold this 38 development province to me for a measly 400 ducats. Now I am only one province away from forming Italy, and that is none other than our rightful capital Rome. The main goal for the next session is thus the Eternal City itself.
Provinces gained: Milan
Vassals gained: The Knights, Austria
Junior Partners gained: Bohemia
I finally declared war on Delhi and his gang. My original plan was to starf them out on my line of forts between mountains and the sea, but they took their time to even show up, so I brought the fight to them. I sadly forgot to check after the war how many troops they lost, but it was probably in the 300k range.
I started off this game in a war against the Commonwealth and Sweden which my ally Russia was easily winning. My capital was sieged, so I quickly unsieged it and just chilled. I had 10% participation which would be enough for me to gain a few favors and my army was still halved, so I wasn't too keen on fighting Commonwealth and Sweden since another unlucky break could mean no army for me.
Instead, I declared war on poor little Hungary sitting to the west of me. Hungary had one ally, Parma, who didn't want to join in. Oh, and they were guaranteed by Commonwealth which just so happened to already be in a war with me, so they couldn't help poor little Hungary. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that me, Venice and Savoy (and later, Bohemia) waltzed right over them. I took lots of land, lots of money, freed up Nitra (which I promptly allied and married for reasons unknown) and got rid of those annoying permaclaims Hungary had in my country.
Next I annexed my vassal and formed the mighty country of Romania! Yay! I did unfortunately lose one of my trusted allies to a lucky PU by Venice (it could've been me ;_;), but then again, since Venice is still my ally I guess Bohemia is sort of my ally, too. That's how that works, right?
Anyhow, didn't do any other wars this game. Got briefly involved by a war Uzzy declared on my buddies the Russians, which I promptly white peaced out of and I also got involved in a war against Milan by Savoy, which we easily won. Otherwise I've just been building up my country. Getting some of that sweet, sweet mana and praying for a better heir than my current leader (had to abdicate my former ruler, because he was just the woooorst).
Too bad Commonwealth decided to get a really annoying ally (Spain), but let's see what can be done about that.
Not that I know, they joined Savoy's war for Milan, but I think that's it on the war-front. I don't know about them choosing to do stupid things with mana and stuff.
Both AI's actually stayed pretty tame. AI Mamluks also didn't do anything if I'm right.
I can't believe the AI did nothing on the international front while I didn't play... it does make me a bit concerned about the internal situation as it probably has cored some lands I didn't want to core or picked my next idea group. Next session ought to be good....
I can't believe the AI did nothing on the international front while I didn't play... it does make me a bit concerned about the internal situation as it probably has cored some lands I didn't want to core or picked my next idea group. Next session ought to be good....
I do think the Mamluks were at war at some point, but it didn't seem like a major thing. The AI allied at least one other country, so it was probably dragged into something.
Not much happening in the Khemeren empire, just gobbeling up some neighbouring territories. Since all the Ais are kinda small now, I had to rival Swahili.
We started out at war against Delhi, to take back our beautiful capital. It took some doing, but in the end, we got it. Then for some reason there kept being great oppurtunistic wars to be had. Gujarat, Bahmanis and at the end Delhi again were wide open. The Mughals now look like this:
The time in between wars (of which there wasn't much) was spent getting Global Trade to spread (man that took ages) and spanking Ming who's getting very fussy nowadays because they supposedly have better diplo-tech than me.
Romania
Started my game taking care of my direct neighbour to the west. Having just been horribly beaten in a war by Saxony, I thought Hungary might need some help so I force vassalized them because I'm such a nice guy. Little vassal Hungary took some time to get used to the idea, but before soon they were nice and loyal. Poor Saxony was being beaten up by Venice to get their vassal Austria some new lands, so I decided to get those provinces back that Saxony stole from my poor vassal.
With that done, I looked to the north. Commonwealth was sitting nice and comfortably with Spain as an ally, which of course we couldn't have. Italy, who recently formed out of Venice, wanted some of that Spanish land and I wanted some of that Commonwealth land, so I declared with the full force of my alliance. Italy, Russia, Savoy (who is crazy strong actually), Bavaria, Nitra and me and my vassal made short work of Commonwealth, Sweden and Spain. Unfortunately my actual warscore with Spain wasn't as good as I wanted it, so we could only get Sardinia freed and some money. Spain's Italian provinces might be for a future war.
My ally Nitra was at this point completely surrounded by me (and Bohemia), so I decided to betray them. I just had to wait for the truce to end, but then my good friend Italy threw me a bone and I got me a nice Nitran vassal.
After that my only possible next target (Commonwealth) was in a truce with me, so I did some mana gathering. Ended the game with a nice war and quick humiliation war against Sweden. I showed my strength (or more accurately, Russia showed their strength in my name), so I got some sweet sweet power projection and mana, which is always very welcome.
And because I got some people asking for screenshots, here's a screenshot. Yay!
I have to say, the AI left the Mamluks in quite a good state! This is what it did:
It picked up the offensive idea group which is the group I wanted, this together with quality has given me Mamlukian Space Marines.
It did some fumbling on the diplomatic front and it allied and married Suz in the far west, I had to break that alliance to free up some diplo-slots and it allied Ajuuraan way deep in Kilwa territory, I dissolved that alliance as that is Kilwa's play ground.
It started integrated my vassel Fezzan, I stopped this but started it again 4 years later... Waste of diplo-points but thats on me.
It had gobbeled up more lands in the Persian gulf and started coring them, I suppose its rightful Mamlukian clay now, I started fortifying the region as its a flash point area.
It ate Haasa and finally gave me complete control of the Bahrain lands.
It decided I needed an even bigger army and built up to my force limit and it hired 5 generals to lead them.
The navy was a mess, I lost 30 ships out on the Western coast of Africa while I re-organised it.
For the rest it seemed to have done some economic improvements as I had a bit more cash flow.
So not bad! I started with some army and navy reorganisation and trained a bunch more of cannons to go with all the infantry the AI build for me, I now have quite the army and a permanent navy in the Eastern part of my Empire. After that I couldn't stay at peace and cleaned up the last vestiges of Ethopian resistance in my land. This is how the resulting eastern and southerns part of the empire looks now:
(Notice the beautiful foothold in South Persia, complete with a bunch of level 4 forts (I unlocked level 6 before the end of the sesssion), Persia has consolidated their lands and the Mughals seem to become the dominating force in India)
After this I recieved the unfortunate news that Venice was no longer my ally, we had to repaint the diplomatic office space dedicated to them as they are now Italian green :D . Italy needed some help consolidating the Italian Peninsula so I joined in war of them and kept the Portugese busy. They rewarded us with some Morroccan lands which we turned into a new friend, called back from the grave is Morocco who will help us reverse conquista Western-North Africa and most likely Iberia.
After this war it was kinda quiet as the Mamluks are blocked in, to the south and east we have the Kilwa-Persian alliance, to the north we have friendly Romania (whom seem very keen to sell themselves out for money) and our ally Italy, finally to the west we have the Portugese and Spanish, with the former I had a peace treaty and on the latter I have no claims. I spent the next decade building up some forts, my economy, onverting some Fetishist and Shia regions to Sunni, and I started integrating Fezzan again, but as soon as the peace with Portugal ended we we're right back at them to reclaim Morrocan lands. I just need to siege out Lisbon to get a favourable treaty and maybe a colony or two, the bad news is that my navy got wrecked twice by the Portugese, I have (arguably) one the strongest armies in the world but not a strong navy.
During the session I had a brief flirting session with Russia as we allied, however the combination of their rivalary with Italy and my love for them and their love of Spain and my rivalry of them made things complicated... I'm sure that won't backfire on Russia... Short term future plans are reclaiming the right full lands of Morocco. And for now I might actually let Spain of the hook for a few years, it seems Persia has some internal problems related to vassals and Spain is keen to take advantage of that and is supporting the independence of Georgia....
Anyway, to end another overview of the Mamluks for the history books anno 1633.
Wednesday was a bit of a blur thanks to a head cold and blind panic at the prospect of AI Mamluks declaring war on me. They only had a two mil tech advantage on me, but as that was 15-13, it'd have spelled doom for me for sure. Thankfully I managed to renew an alliance with Kilwa which probably helped keep them at bay. I punched a load of gold out of Russia, beat up the Timurids and expanded my Northern vassals at the expense of Chagatai and Bukhara.
Today's session was one of consolidation and improving the internals of my nation, given that expansion would prove difficult. To the North is the Russian Giant, to the East the Mughals and Kilwa are carving up India between them, to the South and East lay the Mughal menace. Central Asia is a possibility through my Kazakh and Sibirian vassals, but those are fairly poor lands. The Commonwealth is also being neatly partitioned, but getting involved there would drag me into tension with the European powers, and require my Georgian vassals to stay loyal for half a second.
So, I integrated my Khorasani vassal after giving them all their cores from the Timurids, and got my name on the map in a big way. Pleasing to see at least. I then slowly started to pay down loans, convert some lands, get the Printing Press and Global Trade embraced, sort out my trade situation, grab Economic ideas and push through those, and finally get the wonderful Parliamentary reform in. I've gone through the Government reforms three times now, once as a tribe, second time as a republic, and now as the Holy Persian Empire. It's good to be Shahanshah.
Oh, a brief war against the Timurids happened too, though by this stage they're barely worth mentioning. The war was over in less than six months.
Provinces Gained (This Session): Mangyshlak, Ustyurt, Kungirot, Qaraqalpak, Urgench, Khiva, Qarshi
Provinces Gained for Astrakhan (This Session): Alimuly, Bayuly
Started the session with couple quick wars with Salzburg and Saxony to get Austrian cores back for my vassal, and while I was at it I also gave some provinces for my other Junior Partner, Bohemia. I also annexed the OPM the Knights to get another nice island.
Then at long last came the conquest of Rome. The Papal States were no problem with their ally Portugal getting steamrolled by the Mamluks, and Venice finally formed Italy. I knew Italy had some cool ideas, but in practice they seem amazing unless I'm missing some meta stuff: +15% Infantry combat ability, -25% coring cost, +15% taxes, +20% trade power, +33% manpower. Really gets the snowball rolling.
Rest of the session was a bunch of wars, first helping Romania with the Commonwealth-Spanish alliance, then taking over bunch of minor states left in Italy and the Balkans. Aggressive expansion is getting kind of high, though, but I am tempted to adopt a new attitude towards coalitions: let them come.
I did notice something deeply troubling: those bastards in Madrid had not settled for taking my sweet clay in Southern Italy, they had actually converted their culture. All but one province in Southern Italy is Castilian. Those sons of bitches will pay dearly for this outrage.
Also tested Uzzy's map mod (although now that I compare maybe it's a different one):
Italy today, Roman Empire tomorrow.
Provinces gained: Rome, Romagna, Arezzo, Lucca, Urbino, Umbria, Corsica, Sassari, Ragusa, Varasd, Slavonia, Belgrade, Syrmia
Provinces gained for Austria: Tirol, Lienz, Kärnten, Graz, Steiermark
Provinces gained for Bohemia: Drázdany, Wittenberg
Vassals annexed: The Knights
Italian Ideas are certainly one of the strongest in general terms, up there with the Mughals, Ottomans and Yuan. There's better NIs for colonial, trading, or military focuses, but Italy's a really strong all rounder.
After going fully colonial and in North America and founding the famous colonial nation Old McFart finally a decent opportunity to expand in Europe arises because the countless wars going on in Europe left Norway without a navy and without allies except Gotland, so I could get Faroe plus 4 land provinces in Norway setting foot in a very peaceful zone. The rest of the session was going through the wars of my allies including one France vs England which ended up with a small defeat of my neighbours. And right at the end of the session England decided they want some of my territories and declared war. They outnumber and outpower me so my only hope is that France gains in mainland Europe are enough to settle for a decent peace.
Provinces gained: Faroes plus 4 mainland Norway provinces that can't be written or said out loud.
Netherlands, or how I become Humanist and nobody ever rebels under me.
AI left me with a big army, a big navy, a lot of money, and a 5k surveying army exploring Canada. So much that I thought wise to become Defender of the Faith for the Reformed.
Guess what? 5 minutes and Romania declares war on Hungary.
And there went 500 ducats.
I vassilized Brunswick, that will be diploannexed since they like me +200.
After that, my sessions had two big events: War with Cleves and War with Spain.
War with Cleves:
Essentially in the former HRE the major powers were Netherlands, Bavaria, Cleves, Aachen, Flanders and Hamburg (who has replaced Saxony).
Cleves spent all the game spying on me and being in general very shitty towards Holland/Netherlands. I have some core in them so I finally decided to unleash them hell.
Netherlands
England
Bavaria
Savoy
Bohemia
vs
Cleves
Aachen
I have the screenshot at home, but that was basically so overwhelming that I even took a little pity for them. They lost SO HARD. Gain a province my self and gave three provinces to Brunswick and one to Bavaria.
War with Spain
Spain has two provinces in the Low Countries. I despise them for that. They even converted them Catholics.
I noticed that a coalition that included Italy and Bavaria declared war on Spain and Portugal, so I tried to gain something by that by declaring war on Spain for those provinces. Things coulda gone decently if Romania didn't occupy that province.
I tried to occupy everything I could in Spain (including Madrid) during what was basically a free-for-all invasion, but at the best I could get away with white peace, since I didn't occupy the reason-d'etre of the war, and all my colonies in North America (now the colonial nation of Heineken), so my War Scor was ticking lower as time goes by.
After the big coalition peaced out, I found my army even stranded in Iberia, and my big-ass Navy destroyed.
I basically peaced out by giving Portugal my province in Cuba.
Now I am waiting for Italy to put an eye on Southern Italy, maybe buying Portugal loyalty and bringing England or France in the mix. Then we can fuck Spain.
I actually couldn't help that "I" occupied Antwerp, I think it was Bavaria who was very keen on sieging that province every chance it got. If I could freely give up occupation, I'd do it.
I actually couldn't help that "I" occupied Antwerp, I think it was Bavaria who was very keen on sieging that province every chance it got. If I could freely give up occupation, I'd do it.
Not much movement happened on the Mamlukian side. Finished up a war versus Portugal and fed some land back to my new Vassel Morocco, I now own all the North African coast. Integration of Fezzan finished so my font got even bigger. Biggest news was that diplomatic relations between the Mamluks and the Persians over the remaining Ottoman lands finally broke down resulting in a war between the Mamluk-Italian-alliance and the Persian-Kilwan-front, the timing was great as the Persian decide a few months earlier to go to war in Russia. However these plans got leaked through diplomatic channels for the world to hear and see.
Progress was made swiftly into Georgian-Persian lands but I had to turn around quickly and deal with Kilwa as my forts fell faster then expected, the resulting batte of the south I lost (I thought I left a stack in a maintain province but it was dessert land which Kilwa took advantage of) forcing me the retreat back into my capital region and raise more armies and reinforce the existing ones. During this time I had a small technical glitch (my game crashed yay!) and after my return Italy decided to peace out... atleast they didn't switch sides... The next few months was a bit of cat and mouse as I decided where to strike, deal with Kilwa or Persia, the latter had peaced out with Russia and started sieging my Anatolian lands. Decided to go for Persia as I had a tech advantage on them and could easily outnumber then, 2 victorious battles later in the levant area (including one near Armagedon which included both the entirety of the remaining armies of both sides) a peace treaty was signed in which the Mamluks recongized their defeat on the hands on the Persians-Kilwan-front.
Peace returned, no lands were exchanged, just another war in which manpower and money went to die.... The good news is that this was enough of a distriction for my truce with Portugal to pass so I'll be back at their and Spains troath again. Even better is that Russia again sees value in us being friends and allies, Romania also joined that thinking so now there is a nice Black Sea alliance that has formed.
Picture of the Mamlukian Empire after the (1st) Persian war anno 1645.
So that was a quiet, productive session. I started off with a quick war against the Timmies, but as Chagatai had occupied most of what I wanted, and I was completing my economic ideas, I just punched 300 ducats out of them, as well as revoking a bunch of their cores.
I followed that up by again dealing with Georgian desires for independence by declaring war on one of their supporters, Russia, who were involved in their own war against the Commonwealth. I had a pretty great siege stack ready to knock over some forts in quick succession, and planned on forcing them to contribute to the Persian debt relief programme. This, however, was not to be, as the tyrannical Mamluks struck against my defenceless Ottoman vassals, and so we got into our first big PvP War. Sunni vs Shia, Mamluks vs Persia, at play the entire Middle East. I managed to force a white peace out of the Russians after some battles around Moscow, and turned my attention to the defence of my homeland. My Kilwan ally was doing great work in the Ethopian region and managed to pull away a lot of the Mamlukian forces, leaving me to engage the Italians in one rather large battle, which saw them just about sent packing. A white peace with the Italians was swiftly signed afterwards, their honour upheld (and battles with France to fight!).
There was a lot of back and forth in the war, my stacks managing to siege down a number of forts, even retaking the war goal, until the Mamluks brought the entire weight of their force down upon the northern flank. This, however, left an opening for my Astrakhani vassal to sneak in and occupy Cairo, which undoubtedly helped bring about an end to the war with status quo ante bellum, and a lot of dead soldiers.
Romania - Sweet Revenge
A nice an chill little game for Romania. Started off the game by integrating Hungary, forever silencing my former rival. After that my eyes turned to the North, the remainders of the Commonwealth lived. The Commonwealth had zero friends left, so easy pickings. Just for shits and giggles I called in Russia and Bavaria even though it really wasn't needed. We made quick work of the Commonwealth and got a nice new vassal, Kiev! And also a shitton of money.
In the meantime Persia had attacked Russia and me being a good ally of course answered the call. But also me not wanting to march my 50K troops through Russian lands and suffer a shitton of attrition held back and white peaced Persia out in a year. This hurt my trust with Russia a bit, but not enough to really be a problem.
After that I was just twiddling my thumbs for a bit as my only possible enemy lay to the north and turns out I have a bigass truce with them after that 100 WS war After a while I decided to get in on some new fun, which was Italy declaring war on Spain. Me being a good ally of course joined the war and proceeded to stop Spain in the ground. I got some nice revenge for all the times half my army was stackwiped by stackwiping half the Spanish army (yay!).
So that's where we leave Romania for now, with a strong economy, plenty of space to grow in the north and a army that's nothing to scoff at. Oh, and I finally got a king that has more than 2 mana pips in dip and admin, so I might actually get my tech on par with the rest of the world (gasp!).
Here's a screenshot for the people who like that sort of stuff:
Overall a rather calm session for Italy. Started by finishing couple minor wars which gave us the province of Cremona, and Savoy and Ravenburg were forced to release Milan, Montferrat and Switzerland. Soon after the war I made Switzerland our new Vassal as the integration of Austria was complete.
Then our faithful allies the Mamluks started scheming a war of conquest against their Persian neighbours. Due to rather careless diplomacy the element of surprise was surely gone, but Italy agreed to support the invasion anyway despite our already depleted manpower after constant wars to consolidate our own little Peninsula.
The war went smoothly with hardly any resistance, but then our another ally ended up in a war with France, and soon the French armies were besieging Italy. I withdrew to defend our lands, and then contact was lost with the Mamluk high command. At this time Persians offered a white peace, and to our everlasting shame we agreed, not least of all because at the moment it seemed like the Mamluks had the war well in hand. This decision might have some diplomatic ramifications down the line.
After finally getting out of the war with France, we also began the liberation of Southern Italy from the Spanish. Their armies are surprisingly weak, so the war went well and peace should be struck soon.
Most importantly, with the annexation of Austria, we finally have our name all nice and big on the map:
Provinces gained: Cremona
Vassals annexed: Austria
Vassals gained: Switzerland
So, finally able to do a quick rundown of the evening.
While everybody was doing cool stuff like killing each other, I was busy managing my very rebellious teenage Ming. My ally Shun called me into a war against Xi for the Mandate of Heaven. I sent a couple of troops over to help because I wasn't doing anything special. Ming was powerhousing all over the place, taking a lot of provinces, while the Chinese states we were at war with were only focusing on trying to carpet siege the only player involved in the war.
We beat them eventually though, with Shun giving Ming around 10 provinces, increasing their liberty desire even more and stranding a fair bit of my army in China.
And of course Shun immediately broke their alliance afterwards. "Here's ten Provinces from this war". 1 Month passes. " Hey I want those provinces, alliance canceled!"
Even worse was that Xi was spawning 40k Ming rebels they really couldn't defend against. Which would mean an even more rebellious Ming... So I figured I'd annex Ming.
It will only take 30 years. 30 years of sinking prestige into placating... Fun stuff.
Also, ferrying a 60k stack back from China to Thatta using 4 (I was building more in the mean time) transports was also great.
